


wanna kiss your silhouette

by unicyclehippo



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, art journalism major kara, james & lucy are in love they dont break up, journalism law major cat, kara gets excited about dolphins, supergirl uni au, theres a beach scene, winn is only a little bit of a Nice Guy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 10:02:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8245175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: supergirl uni au — the tribune, university newspaper, is failing. no one is reading it. so when a new hero turns up on the scene—mysterious, elusive, strong, incredibly kind—cat knows she's got her story. the one that will save the tribune and help secure her future. all she has to do is track them down, get an interview, tell the whole world about them, and write something so incredible the university will have no choice but to give her funding back. easy. oh, and she has to make it through an entire year with the clumsiest, most naive, strangest, flatmate that could ever have been imposed upon her — kara danvers, whose story is just beginning.





	1. Chapter 1

There’s this warehouse, old, abandoned. It’s a fair way out of the city and from the outside it doesn’t look like much—complete with grass that brushes up around Kara’s hips as she jogs toward it, flaking paint, and windows that screech their complaints when the wind starts blowing even a little. It’s big, though, and out of the way, and no one uses it anymore. They used to make cars there, or dishwashers, or crayons maybe. She’s not sure. It’s not very obvious just from looking at the machines—great hulking grey _things_ that lay along the vast floor of the factory, still and silent. Covered with dust and streaked with long-dried grease, she knows they haven’t been touched in years. But Kara can still imagine them rolling and rumbling and she can feel the echo of the people who worked here, brushing up against her as she moves through the space.

It makes her teeth ache, sometimes, how full and _vibrant_ this world feels. How bright its people are. 

The whole _city_ feels like this, hundreds of times over. She didn’t know it would feel like this when she was back in Midvale—in Midvale, she knew everyone and how they sounded and what they felt like, and she thought that was as hard as it could get. But Midvale was an exposed nerve, a sensitive tooth—she had everything new in the world to know, and learn, but more than enough time to handle it. 

Here? Here, everything comes in wave after wave, with no way of stopping it or blocking it out. Sounds upon smells upon more sounds, all carried on air that tastes like salt and gasoline. 

And the _lights_! The lights never turn off!

If Midvale is an exposed nerve, National City is her spine set alight with ten thousand volts. 

But here, in this warehouse, she can pretend that she’s home in Midvale. Home, in Jeremiah’s tinkering shed, far down the slope away from the lovely home by the sea and half built into the side of the hill, his shed had been half study, half laboratory. His shed, which had become Alex’s shed and more or less Alex’s bedroom and study and haven and home after he’d died. She sets her bag on the ground and, after a moment of hesitation, takes her glasses off as well. She tucks them into their case and peeks around with her x-ray vision. 

Not another soul in sight.

“Okay.” Kara licks her lips, wipes her hands on her hoodie. “Be careful. Go slow. No need to rush, just take it easy, plenty of time to do whatever you want.” She sets her feet shoulder width apart and braces herself. “Nice and easy.”

She sucks in a deep breath and—doesn’t jump.

“ _Rao_ , what are you _thinking_ , Kara?” She closes her eyes to avoid seeing the skeleton of the factory, from calculating the width and length and height of the space, the strength of the beams that cross the roof. She can’t _not_ see the numbers—they pile up in her head until she assigns them properly—and sorting them out gives her a few seconds of peace. First Kryptonian measures, then human, and once that’s done, the warehouse feels less like _a_ warehouse and more like _her_ warehouse, solid and real in her head and over her head. 

She wanders down the line of conveyors belt and trails her fingers along the cool metal. They shake, but she doesn’t let them dig in hard enough to curl the metal into shavings. 

“This is a bad idea,” she reminds herself. She shouldn’t be in a warehouse in the middle of the night preparing for this, she shouldn’t have spent the last _two_ nights scoping out possible warehouse to _do_ this—she should never have thought about doing this! She should actually have listened to her new parents slash scientists and locked this part of herself away a long time ago. She should not be—

But. But she’s a thousand miles from home—twenty thousand light years further from her _home_ —and there’s too much energy buzzing inside her not to use it. And, Rao protect her, she _wants_ to use it. She wants to feel whole and useful and to _use_ this power inside of her, she wants to—it doesn’t matter. She can’t. 

“Well, I _can_ ,” she mumbles. “Technically. But I shouldn’t. Right?” She looks over to her bag, a few short hundred metres away, and waits a long minute for it to buzz. Because that would be a sign that she shouldn’t do this. 

It doesn’t buzz, it doesn’t ring. 

There’s no one here and she’s certainly not going to be telling anyway. But she spent all day watching her cousin save a whole town from bushfires and flying injured citizens to the nearest hospitals, carrying a dozen at a time in buses, and the urge to fly fills her until she can _taste_ it—it’s dangerous in her mouth, like sharp teeth and want on the edge of hot, like boiling water, like the metal from the inside of the soda cans she can always taste. 

What could possibly go wrong?

She plants her feet firmly again and shakes out her arms and shoulders, rolls onto the balls of her feet like she’s seen Alex do when she’s about to fight. “Nice and easy,” she mutters, curls her hands into fists. “Nice and easy.”

//

As it turns out, there’s very little that’s nice or easy about flying. 

The way it feels? _Amazing_. Once she’s landed—busted through the wall, technically—she can think of a hundred, a thousand clamouring, clashing superlative descriptions for it but in the moment she’s got nothing. Which is just—just— _amazing_. She’s never lost herself in something before, never been able to shut down her mind long enough to not hear, not see everything around her, but for a few brief seconds all there was in her life was the feeling of lifting her feet off the ground and power thudding through her like the sun itself had decided to rise at midnight and inside the chest of a girl—and then, of course, set immediately after that and slam her through the nearest wall when she lost control, too giddy, too _thrilled_ to focus on staying upright and slow and still. 

So, yeah, flying? Not so easy. And bringing down a distinctly human-shaped hole in the wall? Not so great. 

“Oh boy, bad idea, bad idea, _bad_ idea.” She picks her way out of the rubble, runs both hands through her hair to shake free the dust and debris. “I want to go to university, Eliza! I want to be a normal person, Eliza!” A few pieces of gravel itch under her collar and she fishes them out, grumbling at herself. “I want to completely forget all the promises I made to you and go to a secret warehouse and practice my powers less than a month after I get here, Eliza! Rao, what’s _wrong_ with me?” 

She snorts, glances around at the damage. The wall, yep, very human-shaped hole right there. But hey, the place is still standing so that’s a good sign. 

“Alex is gonna be _so_ mad when she finds out,” Kara sighs, and shakes the excited buzz out of her hands. She feels like she’s crackling—what she imagines a human might feel if they’ve taken forty times their daily limit of caffeine, perhaps, which she’s only seen _once_ before, when Alex had been taking her finals and brought out a saucepan no Danver woman had ever touched, a mammoth of a pot, and mixed together seven litres of coffee and some unlabelled energy drink that made Kara recoil when she smelled it. She poured the stuff into several thermoses, got Kara to carry the spare fridge into her bedroom, and Kara had kept the defibrillators with her all that week. Just in case. “Then again, no one _saw_ me. And, pfft,” she laughs, lifting a few bricks back into the wall but when they crumble more—wow, it is _hard_ to control her strength when she feels like this!—she gives it up for impossible. “I was just practising. Right? No big deal. _Not_ a big deal. So really, I don’t have to tell her anything because there’s nothing _to_ tell.”

She steps through the hole and with every step, she works on stretching out her senses. It feels like an unfurling, and she luxuriates in it—she can _feel_ the dust on her arms, taste the atmosphere. She feels like she could hear everything in the whole city, if she tried. And this time, when she lifts off the ground, the threat of falling, of spinning off in every direction, doesn’t feel like something she needs to worry about. 

Floating is good for about ten minutes—it’s not hard for her to get the hang of it and then she wants _more_. A dangerous feeling, maybe, but it doesn’t feel dangerous when she’s laughing and spinning somersaults. 

“This is _amazing_ ,” she cheers, and spins right up and into a beam, which groans and bends around her shoulder. “Oops, sorry, sorry.”

She’s smoothing out the beam, trying to encourage it back into shape, when her hearing catches a voice—quiet, scared, pleading only in a slight gasp and swallow—and she falters. Small craters punch into the concrete when she lands. Head cocked to the side, eyes shut, she searches for it again. “Rao, Kara, what are you doing?” she asks herself. Arms wrapped tight around her waist, like she can somehow hold herself back, she nonetheless searches for that voice, tries to remember the timbre of it and—

“ _Please don’t_ ,” that voice says, and now there’s a hole in the roof too because Kara rockets through it, craters fracturing further under the force of her take off. The iron peels apart around her head and shoulders, she hears it tear, but she doesn’t really think, or care, about it. 

Or—she _does_ think about it. She knows why she’s hiding—she still has nightmares about why she’s hiding. She got a two hour long lecture about hiding and how to fit in and to not use her powers the day she left for university. 

But she _heard_ them. Calling for _her_. Okay, maybe not her exactly but for someone and Kara knows that no one else could have heard. No one _else_ is going to save them. And so, despite all of the reasons she shouldn’t, she goes to them. 

She touches down just outside the warehouse and runs there, not confident enough in her flying to know for sure that she won’t break something or crash-land instead of helping. Besides—she runs _fast_. 

“Hand the damn bag over _now_. Give it to me.” This gruff voice—it’s in the same place, Kara is sure of it—is what Kara hears next and her eyes pick out the tell-tale signature of something metallic. The shape of it tells her _knife_. 

Kara pulls her hood up and over her hair and runs down the alley. 

She takes a moment to fix it all into her mind—a lady, pressed up against the rough-brick wall, bag discarded at their feet and contents scattered, a man, larger, with an arm across her shoulders and his other hand at her side—and then Kara clears her throat, trying not to spook him into stabbing the woman. 

“Um. Excuse me?”

When the man jerks around to face her, Kara sees that the woman is bleeding from a scrape over her eye and her hands too. She rolls wide eyes, mostly whites, toward Kara—a look somehow scared _and_ worried at the same time. _Leave_ , her eyes seem to be telling Kara. _Don’t get involved in this too_. 

Kara smiles at her, trying to look reassuring. 

It obviously doesn’t work, because the woman hisses at her, “Get _out_ of here, what are you doing? _Run_.”

“Hey! Shut the fuck up!” He looks a little confused, which Kara thinks is probably bad because confused men with knifes aren't likely to make  _great_ choices.

“You need help,” Kara says to the woman. “Right?”

“I,” the woman looks down at the knife against her ribs. “Yes?”

“ _Both_ of you shut up.” The man presses the knife tighter against her and Kara smells fresh blood, sees a bead of it soak into her crisp white shirt, now rumpled. He jerks his chin at Kara, nods to the opposite wall. “Get over there.” Kara steps back. “Good, further.” She steps back again. “Now don’t move, okay, don’t _fucking_ move, or I’ll cut her up.”

Kara cocks her head to the side. “With what?”

“What do you _mean_ wi—“

She holds up his knife. “This?”

“What— How—” Kara steps toward him now, slowly, and the skin around her eyes burns a slow, hot red. The woman shoves him back when his grip on her shoulders weakens, and he stumbles away from her, eyes fixed on Kara. He pales. His voice is a croak when he asks the real question. “What _are_ you?”

“Your worst nightmare.” It sounds tacky when she says it but she throws her shoulders back and tries to look confident anyway. 

Rao, she hopes she can actually control this and won’t burn his face off, that would _suck_.

“ _Demon_ ,” he whimpers, and turns and sprints from the alley. He trips over his feet and Kara considers collecting him before he can stand, considers taking him to the police, but she has no proof he did anything and he can tell them what she did. Instead, she turns away, crumples the knife in her hand and tosses it into the garbage. 

She hears the slide of fabric on rough stone and looks to see the woman has sunk down onto the ground. Kara crouches carefully, slowly, near her. Not too close. 

“Hi there,” she says. She wets her lips. “Umm. I’m not a demon.”

The woman—young, about Kara’s age—stares at her for a long minute. A laugh bubbles up out of her, at odds with her wide, alarmed eyes. 

Kara _umm’s_ and _ah’s_ for a second or two, hands fluttering between reaching out to soothe the woman and realising that unfamiliar—and possibly demonic—hands touching her might not be what she wants right now. “It’s okay,” she settles on saying, because this girl is going into shock and she needs to do _something_. “It’s alright, you’re okay. He’s gone. He’s gone.” She shuffles a little closer, hands still held wide and open, as unthreatening as she can.

The woman breathes out and leans her head back against the wall, blinks a few times very quickly up at the sky, what little can be seen in the gap between the buildings. 

“I—I don’t even have any money,” she hiccups. “And I don’t think he takes paypass.”

Kara laughs and nods, reaches out so slowly to wipe the woman’s face with the sleeve of her hoodie. Once she realises what Kara is doing, the woman gasps and shakes her head, wipes at her own face with quick, almost embarrassed, sharp movements. 

“I’m fine, thank you, I’m fine, you don’t have to,”

“It’s fine,” Kara tells her softly, retreating a little again. “It’s fine. You’re alright.” The woman won’t look at her and she’s shaking a little so Kara deliberates for a second or two before she kneels and unzips her jumper, pulls her arms out of it and holds it out for her. “Here.”

“Oh. No, thanks, I—”

“You’re shaking. Please take it?” Kara doesn’t move closer, scared of scaring her. “I insist,” she says, too soft to really be insistent, but it works to jolt the woman out of her shock just enough to reach out and take it.

“Oh. It’s really soft.”

“Thank you! I’m sorry it doesn’t really smell nice, or of anything, I don’t really like smelly washing powder.”

“That’s okay.” She doesn’t put it on, though, she just holds it loosely in her hands and Kara risks leaning toward her and pull it around her shoulders. She doesn’t want to manhandle her into it but she hopes that it’ll at least be warm around her. “Thank you.”

“You reckon you can stand now?” The look Kara gets is uncertain and Kara shakes her head. “It’s okay, take your time. I’ll pack your things into your bag, okay?” She turns and is surprised when the woman reaches out, grips her hand tight. 

“Don’t go!”

She’s surprisingly strong for a human and Kara wonders if that’s training or fear. Possibly both, she reminds herself, thinking with a little pride of the multitudes of human existence. 

“I’m not going,” Kara soothes her. “You can hold my hand the whole time if you want. I’m just packing your bag. Okay?” She smiles sweetly at the woman before the dark look can settle in her eyes, something like fear, something hurting like shame. “I promise, I’ll be right here.” The grip doesn’t ease, but Kara manages to twist her hand so that she’s holding the woman’s hand firmly instead of being gripped onto. When she’s done, she hands the bag to the woman and she’s pleased to see that she’s not shaking as much anymore. 

“Your hands are warm.”

“Demon, remember?” Kara jokes.

“Right. So, warmed by the fires of hell?”

“Roasty toasty,” she nods, and she’s even more pleased when the woman huffs a little laugh. “You ready to stand now?”

The woman bundles her hands into the sleeves of Kara’s hoodie and swipes underneath her eyes again. “Yes,” she says, tone firm, and Kara finds herself amazed by her strength. “Thank you for saving me,” she says when she’s standing. “God, I feel like such an _idiot_.”

“What?” Kara blurts out. “ _Why_?”

She gives Kara a curious look, lips twisting into an unhappy smile. The smile isn’t for Kara, though. “I froze. I _know_ how to fight, my dad insisted, I've been learning for _years!_  And I just,” an unhappy noise grits in her throat. “I _froze_.”

“But you’re alright.”

“Thanks to _you._ ”

“I’m…sorry?” Kara guesses, not sure what she’s meant to say. She’s not sorry, though. 

“Don’t be, I’m grateful. It’s not like I wanted to be gutted, y’know.”

“I do. I,” Kara feels like there should be more to say to her though. Some other way that she can help her—more than just saving her body, Kara wants to make sure that she’s _okay_. And doubt and shame and fear do not make up an okay human. “There is no shame in being helped,” she offers to her, tentatively. She pushes her hands into her pockets and bites her lip. “If there is a person who should be ashamed, it is the man who attacked you. There is no honour in feeding on vulnerability and fear. _He_ should be ashamed. He should be arrested, too. And you?” She shakes her head. “There is no shame in needing help, or in being afraid.”

“Well.” The woman squints at her for a short while before nodding. “Thank you.”

Kara nods. She kind of wants to say something dramatic like ‘it was my honour’ or _‘_ all in a days work,’ but that whole ‘your worst nightmare _’_ line was really terrible and also she just _knows_ that she’s going to trip over her words and make a fool of herself if she tries something smart or suave. She decides to wing it—that’s also a bad idea. “I’m, it’s, sure. Yeah, anytime. Oh gosh, not that I _want_ you to be atta—um, be in a position like this again, no way, that is _not_ a thing that I want! But if it were to happen, I’d do it again. This. Helping you.”

The woman laughs and this time, Kara is very happy to hear, she doesn’t sound on the edge of hysteria. 

“Do you want—can I walk you home?” Kara asks, and she’s pleased when the woman quickly accepts the offer. 

//

They walk in silence for a short while. Kara can hear the woman working up to ask her something—she keeps sucking in a breath like she wants to say something, but she never does so Kara just keeps walking and waiting. 

“Do I get to know your name?” the woman finally blurts out.

“Me?” Kara points to her chest and, when she nods, she licks her lips nervously. Alex is going to murder her. “Um. No?”

“Oh. Okay.”

“No, um, it’s not because I don’t want to tell you,” Kara hurries to explain, and she steps away a little so that when she reaches out a little entreatingly to the woman, she can’t quite reach her, isn’t quite invading her personal space. “It’s just…safer. If you don’t know.”

“Okay, mysterious.” 

They walk on. 

Kara ignores too, this time, the curious flicks of her eyes. 

“So, you don’t have a hero nickname yet?” is the next question, half a block later. “Or a suit, I see.”

“I—ha—you make it sound like I have,” Kara glances around, lowers her voice, “ _superpowers_ or something. Which I _don’t_ , by the way.”

“Right.”

“I just took martial arts since I was really little.”

“Which one?”

Kara swallows. “Which…one?”

“Which martial art.”

“Um. All of them?”

The woman snorts and Kara knows that was the wrong answer. Rao save her, she’s gonna be in so much trouble. “Sure, okay, karate kid. And that thing you did with your eyes?” Kara looks down to her feet worriedly—not something as easily explained away, that’s for sure. “No, let me guess. It was a flashlight. Trick of the street lamp on your contacts.”

“It certainly wasn’t demonic, that’s for sure.”

“Y’know, the more you say it, the less certain I am about that. But for what it’s worth,” she shrugs, “I don’t think you’re a demon.”

Kara blows out a relieved sigh. “Good. Nice. Because I’m _not_.”

“Sure. You’re a guardian angel, obviously.” Kara stops still and gapes at her. The woman looks over her shoulder, grinning. “I mean, you’ve _clearly_ just been given your wings—”

“No, hold on, I don’t have wings!” Kara hurries to tell her and she rushes a little to catch up. The woman laughs again. 

“It’s a saying. It means you’re a novice at this.”

“Oh. Okay that’s not _in_ accurate.”

“Thought as much.” The woman stops. Waves a hand at the building they’ve stopped outside of. “This is me.”

“Oh. Great! That’s great. That was quick.”

“Mhm. Well, see you ‘round I guess, Jane Doe.”

Kara snorts. “Jane Doe,” she nods. “Good one.” She waits for the woman to get to the door then, knowing this is a bad idea but not being able to help it—it’s her first _rescue_ , she really wants to know—she calls after her. “Can I know your name?”

She hesitates, pushing the door open. Leans against the doorframe. “That seems a bit unfair.”

“Well, I _did_ save your life,” Kara shrugs, grinning. “Consider that my price.”

“Your going rate is pretty low.” She rolls her eyes when Kara just smiles a little more. Twisting her keys in her hands, she nods. Unzips the hoodie and shrugs it off, wincing when the movement jolts the little nick on her skin. “I forgot about that,” she says a little uneasily, and Kara is quick to move toward her and hover worriedly on the top step. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

“He hurt you. I’m really sorry I didn't get there sooner.”

“Could’ve been worse.” She shrugs and pushes Kara’s hoodie into her hands. “I’ll be _fine_ , relax. I’ve gotten worse shaving.”

“If you’re sure,” Kara concedes. 

“Am I sure that you saved my life? Yeah. And your reward, as agreed." She hesitates a moment longer before she nods, holds out her hand to Kara, which she takes very gently and shakes. "I'm Lucy.”

“Lucy,” Kara repeats. She gives her hand a little squeeze and lets go. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Lucy.”

“Better circumstances would’ve been nice,” Lucy grins, and Kara nods a fervent agreement. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Lucy.” She waits for the door to close and then listens to make sure that Lucy gets into her apartment alright. Third floor, she hears, and then a short walk down the hallway. The key in the lock, a rather heavy sigh. Kara is relieved, and a little upset, to hear Lucy check and double check the door locks and then each of her windows. It’s smart, but she’s sick to her stomach at the thought that someone could just _attack_ another person like that.

She doesn’t mean to, not really, but when she turns away satisfied that Lucy is safe in her home, she glances at the letterboxes. Third floor. 

_C. Corman. 3A_  
L. Brittan. 3B  
_F. Maine. 3C  
_ _L. Lane. 3D_

“No,” she breathes. “No, no, no, that’s…” It’s so improbably she can’t even start to comprehend—her first rescue, a _Lane_?

Alex is going to _murder_ her.

* * *

“Ouch, too hard, Kara,” Alex complains about the hug, but not too much so it isn’t _super_ strong, just a little not-human strong, Kara guesses. That’s okay. That’s fine. Nothing too weird about that. “Relax, it’s just eggs and bacon. You’re not _that_ sick of cafeteria food yet, are you?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Kara groans, latching onto that excuse with both hands. “I’ve eaten cereal every day for the last three _weeks,_ Alex.”

“What? I know that place has good food, what are you doing?”

“I keep getting nervous that if I start, I’ll eat out the whole buffet,” Kara laughs. It’s a legitimate concern she’s had, so it doesn’t feel too much like lying. “Also, the tongs are tiny and I don’t want to bend them.”

“Well you have nothing to worry about here,” Alex teases her. “I made enough for twelve and I stole the reinforced tongs from Mom so we’re all set.”

“You’re the best sister in the world.”

“I know. Thank me in cash.”

“What?”

“I’m taking Suze out tomorrow night and I need money for gas. Don’t worry,” Alex rolls her eyes. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Uh _no_ , you won’t? You never have done?”

Alex shrugs. “Whoops. And it’s do. I never _do_.”

Kara frowns. “You never do.” Alex nods approvingly. “Thanks,” she grumbles. “But I’d like to see you say even _one_ sentence in Kryptonian without screwing it up.” She drops her bag on the ground and folds herself into one of the kitchen chairs, grabs the tongs. 

“Touchy much?” Alex’s eyes narrow. “What’s wrong?”

Kara pauses. “Nothing.”

“That’s not nothing, Kara—have the kids been giving you a rough time? I’ll come by and,”

“And what? Beat them up?” Kara snorts. “No. And everyone is really nice, mostly. I just,” she shrugs. “You know. I’ve been learning for _years_ , I thought, I just wish it got easier at some point.”

“Hey, one word here and there isn’t bad. And you’re great with your strength—mostly,” Alex corrects herself, accepting the tongs from Kara and looking at the grip she’s bent into them. “Um?” She holds them up and Kara flushes pink. 

“Whoops.”

“Whoops,” Alex agrees, very slowly. She nods. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Kara plasters on her most innocent face and nods, filling her mouth with toast and egg so she doesn’t have to actually reply. “Okay. Well, look, don't be so down in the dumps. You’re doing great. And hey, you texted me that you got a job, do you want to tell me about that?”

“I work with you in the lab?”

“No, the _other_ job.”

Kara frowns. It takes her a moment but then her confusion clears up and she points her fork at Alex triumphantly. “The internship! Yes!”

“Sure, okay, internship.”

“It’s different from a job,” Kara tells her. “Interns do not get paid.”

“Right _okay_ , I’m _sorry._ Intern Kara, please tell me about this internship. If you can tear yourself away from _my_ bacon.”

“You made it for me—“

“I made _some_ of it for you,” Alex agrees, curling an arm around her plate when she sees Kara stand and lean over with her fork to try and snag some right off her plate. “Back off!”

She does end up sneaking a piece that falls onto the floor—“zero point two second rule!” she cheers—and when she’s done eating, they collapse onto the couch and Kara grins at the ceiling. “You know my housemate. Cat?”

“Sure, you’ve mentioned her and her evil ways like once. _Maybe_ twice,” Alex laughs, rolling her eyes.

“Well, she’s the student editor of the paper at the university and I applied there to work in the mail room. It’s not _technically_ a mail room, because it’s all digital, so it’s more like a very small desk actually with a computer. Actually, you have to bring your own computer but you get a new email address. And if there is any space in the paper before it goes to print, I get to put in an article of my very own!”

Alex laughs. “And?”

“And she said yes!” Kara hesitates. “I think.”

“You _think_ she said yes?” Alex rolls, slowly, over onto a pillow so there isn’t too much pressure on her very full stomach. She stares expectantly at her sister. 

“Well, there was a lot of scowling? And she told me I had better uphold the standards of the paper and my behaviour reflects on her as my housemate _and_ the editor and she’s not going to go easy on me just because we live together and if I can’t handle that—”

“Breathe, Kara.”

“—then I better pack up right now and run home to mummy and daddy and take my place milking cows and popping out my pretty two point five children and prepare for disappointment.”

“Jesus, Kara!” Alex looks astounded, and a little angry, and a little impressed. “Are you _sure_ that was a yes?”

Kara shrugs, pulls her favourite blanket of Alex’s over her lap and up to her shoulders. She wriggles into the couch until the lumps adjust perfectly to her back. “I think so,” she yawns. “The threats _are_ to make sure I don’t embarrass the paper. Which means…yes. Right?” 

Alex, helpfully, shrugs. 

“Well, I’m writing an article for this week just in case.”

“Smart,” Alex nods. “That’s smart. Cover your bases.”

“Also, _also,_ ” Kara nearly wriggles clear off the couch she’s so excited, “I thought I would do a painting! Watercolour, I think. There are some _lovely_ wading birds down by the lake and I want to write my first article on them because the students keep feeding them bread and it’s _really_ unhealthy for them.”

Alex nods. She flicks a hand to the fridge. “Run and grab me a beer, would you? And tell me all about your article. You need me to proof read it?”

Kara sits up straight. “For _real_?”

“For real,” Alex nods. “I want to hear all about it. You know,” she says, and Kara feels the world slow and get a little heavier, doing her best to focus entirely on her sister and her tender eyes and firm tone, “I am _so_ proud of you, Kara.” 

Kara feels her gut twist uncomfortably and does her best not to react—guilt feels _terrible_ , she truly discovers in that moment. “A beer?” she confirms. When Alex nods, Kara rolls off the couch to get it. She pretends she doesn’t see Alex’s face tighten with worry—normally when she says anything like love, Kara nearly cries, or can’t return the sentiment quickly enough. To get _nothing_?

“Hey, Kara,” Alex calls after her, and Kara swallows hard. She doesn’t let herself pause reaching into the fridge for the bottle, that would be far too much of a giveaway. 

She glances back over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

Alex grins at her. “Perfect use of the phrase ‘for real’.”


	2. Chapter 2

“I don’t know, _Darren_.” She hisses his name like she does a few select other words—imbecile, cretin, bigot—and scrawls over the pages she’s actually had to print out because the work is so abysmal the words swam, unrecognisable, incomprehensible, in front of her when she’d tried to read it on her screen. Heedless of her sleeve dragging in the mostly mopped-up coffee she’d spilled earlier, she draws a great box around several paragraphs and then, _merciless_ , scribbles the whole thing out in red ink. “ _Useless_. That’s what I asked _you_ to figure out because this is a group. Fucking. Project. And. You. Need. To. Do. Your. Part,” she bites out, dragging the pen over the mess until the tip opens a gash in the page. “Serves you right.” Tossing the pen down onto the table, Cat leans away and shakes her head. “What a waste of a tree. Jesus. What a _waste_ of my _time_.”

The pages she ends up just swiping off the table and onto the floor. It’s no help at all. 

“Where are you, _Darren_?” 

He’s long since logged off messenger and Cat glares at the little grey icon with the years of anger at being forced into group assignments bubbling and seething under the surface of her skin. Pro: she’s awake. Cons: she _has_ to be awake because this idiot fucked up; she’s _shaking_ with fury at his incompetence; her hoodie now has a coffee stain on its sleeve. 

“I swear to god, if this drives me to reblogging that insipid meme…” 

She’s praying for basically anything or anyone to save her right about now—a god she doesn’t believe in, some kind of oddly named story book character to request her first born in return for three wishes, a superhero she _does_ believe in. 

“Superman,” she sighs, craning her head back because her shoulders are aching and she thinks she’s going to cramp up and die here because of some useless white man and that’s not the way she wanted to go out—a plane crash, in a private plane, off the coast of some foreign country, and she’s at the peak of her influence, power, and wealth and no one can be one hundred per cent certain whether she’s alive or dead because that kind of power and ambiguity really appeals to her. “Superman, where are you when people really need you? Burn my eyes out of their sockets, _please_.” 

One minute passes, then two, and then Cat can’t pretend she’s doing anything other than procrastinating and the deadline is imminent and so she rolls her head gently side to side then forwards and back on her neck, shakes out her hands, and returns to the three utterly useless pages—three! only _three_ after two whole weeks of time to research—that Darren had sent her. 

But she’s nothing if not exceptional and she’s not about to get less than a seven on this or, god forbid, _fail_. Checking the time—9:45, that’s not _terrible_ but not ideal either—she has to pick quickly before getting hard at work now and risking getting up later, or taking a break now and then powering through to the end. With an agonisingly long three seconds of deliberation, Cat takes off _both_ pairs of glasses that she’s wearing and stands. 

A good cup of coffee would be golden right now but pressing would take far too long, going down to the cafe would take _far_ too long, and instant coffee with its murky taste and equally murky quality—is it _really_ coffee? _Is_ it? Or is it the physical embodiment of late night desperation, the only last-ditch weapon students have against those deadlines that loom and that taste? That taste isn’t coffee grinds, that’s the taste of desperation, of clinging onto your GPA with fingernails and teeth. 

She puts the kettle on boil and walks to the balcony. Delaying the inevitable. It’s raining, heavily, and she drums her fingers on the window before pushing outside, just for a second. The cool bite to the air and the threat of the water that can’t _quite_ reach her where she is tucked under the roof helps to wake her up and she takes in a few deep breaths until the kettle whistles and tells her she’s out of time. 

“Right. Enough of that.” One scoop of the ground—then a second and then half a spoonful more and it’s going to be _disgusting_ but it’s certainly going to wake her up. “Back to work, back to work fixing what _Darren_ has ruined.”

It’s just her, so she’s not worried about anyone thinking she’s reached the breaking point…and then snapped her own mind for the extra credit. 

Only, it isn’t just her anymore, she remembers. 

But what she doesn’t remember is whether or not her newest flatmate had come home tonight—she has a habit of ignoring them, it’s not like they end up staying for very long, and Kiera—Karla?—whatever her name is—has been particularly obliging with the whole ‘quiet as a mouse and _don’t_ let me see you ever’ rule that Cat firmly established the second she signed Cat’s contract.

Kettle hissing, steam blowing up above it, the fridge open a crack, she stares into it for far too long, hesitating between whole and skim milk. 

“Don’t beep at me,” she grumbles, slamming the fridge. Waits a moment. Heaves the door open again. On the one hand, her ass and thighs do not need whole milk. On the other hand, Darren is the most useless human to have ever been born—or, as she assumes, wandered out of a swamp after a particularly exceptional yet ultimately underwhelming experiment of evolution that happened there in the murk and muck. “I hate you,” she says as she picks out the skim milk, “I loathe you, Darren, but there’s no way I’m letting you ruin my diet. You’re not _that_ important.”

Slamming the fridge is therapeutic too, and she settles back behind her computer renewed, refreshed, and, after another read through of what Darren had sent her, re-enraged.

“What the _fuck_ is this, Darren?”

She’s rescued the pages from under her chair. They’re torn and practically dripping red, and it paints a visceral picture of what she’d love—god, _love_ —to do to this mewling pissant. 

“I have more to worry about than this—what the fuck? Is this, are these _question marks?_ Do you not _know_ your source for this?” Cat slams the pages down on the table and smoothes them out. Unsalvageable, she has to print out a new copy and she sends the first of what she suspects is going to be many texts to him. 

— _you owe me four dollars for printing this worthless shit_

She waits for a minute, hoping that he’s awake, but no bites.

“Fine.” Only _one_ pair of glasses on her nose, she settles into work. “Give me strength, this is garbage.”

In a separate window, she drafts a particularly devastating, scathing—somewhat _cruel_ , perhaps—email for her group partners. Not Lucy, though she does get cc’d in, but for the rest of them absolutely. Lucy is _almost_ as talented and intelligent and driven as she is. Equally so, Cat might admit if pressed. But the rest of them? Cat could frankly get a restraining order at this point for all the grief they’ve caused her. 

When the rain starts pelting down against her balcony and window, the wind driving it almost sideways, Cat turns her music down and then off. It’s a soothing accompaniment, and she enjoys interrupting it with her more creatively lurid swears. It’s all about balance. Man versus nature. Chaos and control. 

She’s collected most of the information Darren should have and, peeking at the clock, glowers at the numbers there. It’ll be close—the deadline is 11:59PM and not a second later.

And _sure_ , she knows _now_ that she should have been on their asses way sooner to get organised and get all their research to her so that she could put it together but it’s the first assignment of the semester and she’d honestly thought they’d be more prepared than they clearly are. 

Her mistake, really.

She won’t make it again. 

//

The sharp pain behind her eyes makes her stop and her night turns from terrible to dreadful in the time it takes for her to shake and then, horrified, upturn her Advil bottle into her hand and confirm that it’s empty. 

“You’re got to be kidding me.” The container makes an unsatisfying clatter where she throws it against the wall. “I’m going to murder the next person who so much as mildly inconveniences me, I swear to god.”

Some small, whimsy part of her appreciates dramatic irony. The rest of her, exhausted, burning with fury and rising anxiety, does not. So when there comes a timid knock at the door, a sound barely more than someone tapping their finger against it, she whirls and _glares_ at it. 

“You’ve got to be _kidding_ me.”

“Cat?”

Of course it’s her. Cat pours herself a glass of water and eyes the door, then her watch. Ten to eleven. 

“I…I left my key inside. Can you let me in please?”

Pretending that she can’t hear the girl is appealing. Just leaving her to find somewhere else to stay for the night, since she really does need to finish this assignment and any distraction feels like too much. Also, perhaps she tends to lash out on people undeserving of her cruelty because they’re easy targets and not because she’s truly upset with them. 

But _that_ is something that her therapist would tell her, and _she_ isn’t here right now. 

So Cat purses her lips and sips slowly from her glass and glares some more at the door. 

“ _Please_ open the door, Cat?”

She sounds so pitiful. God. 

Cat tosses the remaining inch of water into the sink and leaves the glass on the bench. Karla will stack that into the dishwasher when she goes to clean up. Then, with a great sigh, she crosses the room. Karen doesn’t ask her or call out to her again, which Cat finds odd, but maybe the girl is just blessed with some new level of patience Cat hadn’t known even existed. 

“What the fuck? What did you do? Swim the English Channel?” 

The girl is _drenched_ , from head to toe and further, spreading out into a pool at her feet. And she _smiles_ at Cat. 

“No. It’s been raining.” She slicks back her hair with a hand, laughs when her hand comes away wetter, and shakes it dry. When Cat keep gaping at her, she shuffles her feet and flushes—her shoes _squelch_. “I’ll take these off.”

“Yes. You will. Socks too.” 

It would be weird to demand _all_ of it come off—even if she’s pretty sure that with her luck the second Karmen steps into the apartment, everything in the apartment will become simultaneously drenched—so Cat just sighs and steps aside, holding the door open for her if impatiently. Katie watches that hand, that door, anxiously and hurries to toe her shoes off. 

When she trips—catches herself, barely—and glances at Cat like she’s wondering if she saw, like she could possibly miss it, Cat leaves her to it. There are some spare towels in the linen cupboard and she carries two back to her flatmate. The gesture earns her a pleased, shy smile that drops at the same moment the towels hit the floor. 

“Do _not_ get water on my floor. You can’t afford to replace them if the water warps them. Understood?”

Kanken nods quickly, making Cat retreat in quick, annoyed steps when water flies from the ends of her hair. “Sorry, oh gosh, did I wet you, I’m—”

“I have an assignment due tonight. Just,” Cat flicks her fingers toward the bedrooms. “Go away.”

“I’ll be quiet as a mouse,” Kirstie agrees. “Although, mice can be quite loud so it’s not a hugely helpful or _apt_ saying.” She gulps when Cat sends her a particularly withering look and nods. “Not a sound,” she whispers. “Got it.”

She disappears down the hall into her room and when she returns to put her groceries away, in clean, dry clothes, hair twisted up into a bun, Cat makes uncomfortably direct eye contact with her—uncomfortable for Kiera, anyway—and places her headphones on as obviously as she can manage before she turns back to her computer. 

Sinking into her work, she stops being aware of anything more than the clock, the screen, and her body. Primarily fingertips. 

At eleven forty-one, she peels herself away from her computer with a relieved sigh. Inbox pinging to tell her that the assignment has been received, she pulls her glasses off her face and takes a sip of hot coffee. Savours it for a moment before the haze clears and the confusion sets in. Hot? The cup she recognises, the label is from the late night cafe just down the road. But…

_KARA_ , the looping writing on the lid reads, and Cat rolls her eyes. She hopes the second trip out into the rain didn’t get the floors destroyed this time. 

“At least she remembered to take her keys this time,” Cat grumbles, and she takes her headphones off and stretches and looks around to make sure her home still stands. 

Annoyingly, it looks impeccable. Kansas has managed to neaten the living room, clean the kitchen, tidy the books on the table and pin together her disparate papers, all in addition to going out of her way to fetch her a coffee as well as—she touches a finger to the crumbs on the plate next to her and realises that she’d apparently inhaled a cookie at some point without noticing. And all of this without Kristie distracting her. 

It’s so _nice_ of her and Cat sighs. “I’m such an asshole.” Rolls her head lazily to the side to eye the dark hallway—should she? But no, it’s not quite midnight but her flatmate is the epitome of an _actual_ good girl and she has a strict bedtime of which the big city with its lights and life hasn’t quite stripped her. Instead, she prints out the readings for the next two weeks and sends another slew of texts to Darren, and one to Lucy after a moment of thought.

— _you’re the only one I’m willing to work with again_

She knows she’s picked correctly when she gets a reply a few seconds later. 

— _for projects?_

Cat huffs. It’s such a waste of time having to explain herself. So what if she’s being vague—they should _know_. 

_—no, for construction_

_—??_

_—yes, lane. for projects._

_—cat. thats the nicest thing u have EVER said to me_  
—to anyone?  
—im flattered 

Cat laughs down to her phone and tosses it onto the table, rubs her eyes. Packing away her things takes quite a while, possibly. She isn’t sure. Now that the deadline is passed, she doesn’t want to look at another clock until absolutely necessary. Out of sheer spite, she may train her body clock to know what the time is at any given moment. 

And _that,_ she acknowledges, is the exhaustion talking. 

She still has her papers to collect from the printer and her computer is literally one click away from shutting down when Lucy texts her again and her hand moves to it before she can make it finish any other task. She allows it. 

_—heyy do u have the link that prof glasses mentioned in monday lecture?_

Cat traces her mouth with a thoughtful finger. She does, of course. But…

— _what will you give me for it?_

_—nope ur still not getting an interview w lois  
—i refuse_

“Had to try,” she murmurs, even as her fingers fly over the screen.

— _had to try_

— _yeah whatever._

Cat is perhaps the tiniest bit worried that she’s actually offended her friend, when the typing bubbles pop up on her screen again. 

_—anyway i might? have smth good for u_

_—oh? and what might that be?_

She watches as Lucy types _—_ and then stops typing. Then starts again. Finally, she gets her reply. 

_—i'll tell u in person_

_—suspicious.  
—you just want me to buy you coffee, don’t you?_

_—hey, u gotta keep ur CIs happy, right? ;)_

_—is olsen aware that you’re flirting with me?_

_—totally, he’s right here. i’ll say hi for u kitty_

She gets a photo of the two of them, James smiling nicely at the screen and Lucy blowing her a kiss and Cat snorts, shakes her head.

— _beautiful._

When Lucy sends her several love hearts with the new slam effect, she jumps a little and laughs, glancing around to make sure that no one—in her mostly empty apartment—noticed. Then she locks her phone without replying. Serves Lucy right for scaring her. 

Packing up, she thinks about what Lucy had mentioned. Her ‘something good’. The tone of that message had been just… _off_ enough, her gut tells her, for it to be something real. More than just a coffee date. She’s intrigued—but it’s late, and she should sleep. And besides, there might not be any point in collecting any more stories now. 

Everything is in its place—computer, readings all tucked into her bag and set aside so when she invariably hits snooze two too many times tomorrow morning everything is ready for her to grab and run. She nods in satisfaction, takes her cup to the bin. Plate in the dishwasher. Buries a yawn in her hand and pads around the place, switching off her charger and the lamps. 

She’s almost back to her room when she sees it. It would’ve been easy to miss, the way Kara’s door sits slightly ajar, but she’s looking down the hall. Not for that exactly, but for some kind of sign that the other girl is still away. Guilt, that insistent little bastard of a feeling, itches under her skin and she tries to ignore it, pretend that her shoulders are tense from slumping in front of her computer, but… She _did_ snap at her earlier. And dropped the towels on the floor instead of helping her. And…okay, sure, she also accused the girl of “airing her dirty laundry to the public” when she’d tried to remind Cat that they live together, which she’d only done because Cat had forgotten who she was. 

She’ll just go and see if the girl is awake. If she is, she’ll apologise, Cat tells herself. If not, then it’s obvious that she managed to get to sleep without any problems, so she’s not emotionally damaged and an apology won’t be necessary. 

The open door sends a shiver up her spine like she’s in some damn horror movie. 

She flattens her palm against the door—bad idea? she’ll just have to find out—and a little push guides it gently open. 

At first, she doesn’t see Kara. No—first is the rain. 

The storm has picked up again and it flattens itself against the glass, the ferocity of it making a grey haze that separates Kara’s room from the rest of the city that can normally be seen out the windows. And the _sound_ of it all—crashing down on the balcony, the tiles, the roof, the window—all those variances mix together inextricably and _loudly._ Cat can see one window has been cracked open a touch to invite it in and just like that, the rain is softened. Company, not intrusion. A blanket of sound, to hide under, to find comfort in. It’s the kind of heaviness that makes the world a little softer, a little easier to deal with. 

She thinks she’s right because Kara, sitting on the floor at the wall of windows, is crying. 

Down by her knee are some papers. Photos, maybe, or a letter? Cat can’t quite tell at this distance. Kara lowers one from her hand and places it gently onto the others. Her fingertips graze over it, _so_ tenderly like she's afraid it'll crumble under anything more. When they flutter in the wind, she abandons them for only the amount of time it takes to shift an open box to pin them down. 

Cat gnaws at her bottom lip, wavers in the doorway. This is a moment too heavy to intrude upon, given that she’s spoken to the girl _maybe_ five times since she arrived. And though she knows she should leave, right now before Kara sees her, she lingers. 

Moments—shocks of moment, of awareness, of recognition—have always been important to her. This moment? Cat feels like a thief, stealing past every smile Kara has ever given her, every moment of normalcy. She’s seeing something she has no right to see, taking something that has not been given to her, and it’s wrong but Cat…Cat can’t look away. 

On the ground there, her secret heart poured out onto the floor next to her, heart blood pooling in her lap in the form of a red blanket, Kara is the same tall, long, lean young woman Cat has seen day after day. But when she tilts her face up to the window and stares with dark eyes up at the sky, Cat cannot recognise her. 

The moon—full, fat, silver—makes her face alien, unfamiliar. The planes of her cheeks, her forehead, shift between harsh and soft with the slightest motion. It’s pale, pale light washes away anything earthly and there, in the dark, Kara is a vision of—

Is there a word for it? One strong enough? Vast, deep, _fitting_?

Pain? Pain isn’t enough. Pain is too much a stubbed toe, a knocked elbow as it is anything else. Too common. And fleeting, often, a shock, a sting. What Cat can see…it isn’t fleeting. This is an outpouring, a dam overflowing. It’s pressing at the edges of her and winning. 

Agony isn’t right either, though Cat can see traces of it, the twist of it in the corners of her mouth and in the too-tense fingers clutching at her blanket. The way she moves to grasp her own shoulders in some sad, sad mockery of a hug. But agony? No, too loud. Too public. 

Loss isn’t enough, nor hurt, nor grief, nor upset. Not even despair, torment, measure up to this—the utterly still _maw_ of hurt. 

It’s not often that Cat finds herself grasping for an explanation, a word, but she supposed in this instance it is fitting. 

Kara’s shoulders hitch but Cat doesn’t hear it, can’t hear it. Her crying is silent and as Cat watches, Kara folds herself inward, presses her balled fist to the centre of her chest. Mouth opens in gaping, gasping pain. 

An absence—Kara curled around her missing parts. 

The moon burns clearer, wisp of clouds parting. The light throws everything into uncanny halves—Cat, fully shadowed by the door, can’t blink, can’t turn away from this silvered strange landscape that is nothing of her own home. Fully claimed by this girl. 

This half girl, and her long shadow stretching out behind her. 

Shaking—from the cold, her mind tries to explain it—Cat hooks her fingers around the door knob and she pulls the door back to where it had been before she had come. She makes her way back to her own bedroom, closes the door, and slips into bed. And when sleep refuses to come, she yanks her curtains closed and, with the moon gone, Cat falls into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

“Jesus, Cat, it’s nine in the morning. Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Sleep is for slackers.” 

“Right.” He doesn’t look surprised to see Cat at his desk, working in his office—he shouldn’t be, she does it often enough that she’s heard people refer to it as Cat’s office more often than she’s heard Connolly’s office. 

She hears him dump his satchel on the visitors chair and he walks straight to his bar. With a sideways glance to her that she spies in the reflection of her computer screen, he starts working on the coffee machine instead of the fridge. 

“Want anything?”

“No, thank you.”

“Hmm.” The machine gurgles for a second before it starts to splutter in urgency and then spits out the coffee into his mug. Milk then. And, Cat rolls her eyes, _three_ spoons of sugar. 

Cat saves her document and turns her chair—his, technically—around so she can examine him. It looks like _he_ slept just fine, she notes. With blonde hair cropped short, a crisp white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and dress shoes Cat knows are polished religiously from the faint scuffs. Leaning back against the bench, mug in hand, beard coming in on cheeks and chin, he looks every bit a cool, old-fashioned journalist. 

For one single heated moment, she knows that no one has ever questioned his integrity, his stance, whether it was biased or clouded by his emotions. She knows that he’s never had to fight for this position, not like she’s had to fight. For that moment, the one moment she allows herself to be _furious_ , her future stretches out in front of her and she knows she’s going to be fighting for a very long time to be seen as anything—half as good, half as dedicated, half as worthwhile an investment. 

She wants to grit her teeth until they _crack_ when he sips loudly at his coffee. Tempering herself, the rage, until it coils deep inside her chest, she relaxes. The anger will be there when she really needs it but she can’t let it be her driving force—that is, and _must_ remain, her determination. Her ambition, her desire. She lets the sound wash over her, pretends that it’s punctuation for the moment. The ellipses that lead to…

“Did you think about what I told you?”

To that.

Leaning back in her chair, she crosses her legs one over the other and drums her fingers on the leather arms. It’s a stupid question and she lets know exactly how she feels about it with a near-violent roll of her eyes. He laughs down into his coffee. 

“And?”

“Well,” Cat tilts her head thoughtfully. “It was badly timed.”

“Right.” Clicking his fingers, he nods. “Assignments. My bad. I just wanted you to be prepared.”

“Oh don’t misunderstand, I appreciate the gesture. But,” she flutters her eyelashes innocently, gives him a soft smile that sits at odds with her cool, cool tone, “I may have eviscerated one of my group partners to work off some aggression.” 

Connolly laughs and Cat turns back to her computer to hide a pleased smile. “I’m sure he deserved it.”

“You have no idea.” She shakes her head, trying not to fall back into annoyance. It feels good but it’s ultimately unproductive and she has a lot of work and a lot of plans to put into effect. “So, I printed out a list of writers I want to bring into The Tribune and,” she pulls a thick sheaf out of her purse, “I started thinking about the direction we want to take the paper. It’s been stagnant for too long and—”

“Cat, _Cat_ ,” Connolly steps forward, alarmed. He pushes a hand down onto the stack of papers so she can’t hand them to him. “What are you doing?”

“Working.”

“The Tribune has been _cut_ ,” he reminds her.

As if she could forget. 

“No, you said that it _will_ be cut. Which means it hasn’t yet. Which _means,”_ she tells him, brushing his hand away and standing, “that I have time to save it.” The papers slap into his chest with a satisfactory _thunk_ and Cat holds it there with her hand and with a look until he reaches up to take them. “Read through them. I have a lot of ideas.”

“Cat—”

“That wasn’t a suggestion.” She’s at the door when she stops. Purses her lips. There is no room for error here—he has to _listen_ to her, he has to _help_ her, because as much as she believes in her own rather extreme force of will there is no way that she can do this alone. 

She turns back to him. “For four years, I’ve sat behind a desk here and worked harder than anyone else. By _far_. Longer hours, harder topics, better articles. I’ve had to listen to men thinking they’re top shit for _four years_ , even when they clearly had no fucking clue what they were doing. It was handed to them on a silver platter and they ran this paper to the ground and now that it’s my turn, the turn I _worked_ for,” she tells him, eyes narrowing to a dangerous slit, voice dropping, “now that I’m the one in charge, I find out that the university doesn’t want us anymore?”

She can’t stop herself from advancing on him. The heavy desk doesn’t look like much of an obstacle between them, not when she feels like this—like molten metal ready to be shaped, ready to shape its own damn self—and from the look on his face, he knows it too. 

“That doesn’t work for me.” She’s proud of her tone—not a trace of anger in sight, even when she feels it licking at the insides of her lungs, smoke doing its best to make a husk around her words. She forces herself cold. Determined. “I’m not letting it happen. So, the _only_ thing I want to hear from you is this, Connolly: are you going to help me? Or not?”

//

“Hi. Um. Cat?”

An arched eyebrow is her only reply. Fingers flying over her keyboard, she waits for the rest of the question and, when it’s not forthcoming, she blocks out the asker’s voice entirely. 

Her next interruption she doesn’t mind so much.

“Cat—photos here from the Pride march,” James tells her, firm, to the point. No wasted time. “I have to head off to class but do you want anything else before I go?”

“No, shut up and leave me alone.”

He laughs and drops his photos onto the stack. “Alright, see you later. Oh hey!” Cat starts to tune him out—he sounds too happy, which means he’s not talking to her—but then a name sticks. “New girl! It’s…Kara, right?” Ah. So that’s who the lingerer is. “How are you going? Fitting in alright?”

“Ah—yes. Yeah, yes, I am. It’s, um, well,” Cat can hear the tell-tale sound of _fidgeting, “_ it’s a learning experience.”

Cat grins down at her computer. That’s code for floundering if ever she’s heard one. Then, her smile fades when for a moment, this sunshine-clad, sunshine-voiced girl is superimposed with her double, that cold, dark girl crying on her bedroom floor. 

Her hands shake and she squeezes them into fists and loosens them slowly, relieved when the warmth rushes back in. Just in her head. Stupid. She frowns at her screen, backspaces a few words she doesn’t remember having written and that have nothing to do with the email she’s trying to craft. Another one for Darren, less harsh but more comprehensive than the last.

She taps at her spacebar, listening to the girl chat with Olsen. She _sounds_ cheerful enough, and genuinely so. Could be an act. Or the crying could have just been from exhaustion. Nothing about it suggested it was _Cat’s_ fault. Her tired mind could have exaggerated the whole thing—it _had_ been dark, and late, and she couldn’t _really_ see Kara’s face. 

“Well, hey, it was really nice to meet you, Kara, but I have to run to class. I’ll see you around?” 

Looking up just in time to catch the end of their conversation, Cat manages to catch the way James reaches forward, squeezes the girls shoulder. Kassie beams over at the boy and nods quickly, smile so wide her cheeks nearly hide her eyes. 

“I’d like that!”

Cat rolls her eyes. She wonders if the poor girl even known that James is taken. From the way she stares after him, Cat guesses not. It’s none of her concern, so Cat returns to her email. Maybe she could make it a _little_ scathing. 

“Cat,” Kamille says, and Cat is startled enough by the suddenly firm tone to look up at her. Katie beams, apparently thrilled that this tactic has worked, and it ruins the moment. Cat looks away again. “All your emails are sorted and…” She runs her finger down her notebook, taps the page. “Luke Hampson is late with the public interest article.”

“There’s a surprise.” Cat makes a note on her computer—he’ll be the first one she cuts when it comes to that. “Anything else?”

“I finished my article.”

“Yours?” Cat frowns up at her. “Who are you again?”

“K-Kara? Danvers? I—“ Having learned from the last time she said it, the girl wisely doesn’t mention that they live together. She gapes for a moment, “I, well, I know the job description was communication support but you _did_ say that I could write an article for you?”

“Did I?”

“Yes. Then you told me to go home and milk a cow.”

Cat laughs at that. “Oh yeah, I remember now.” She shrugs and rolls out her shoulders before holding out her hand to Kiera, who blinks at it, confused. “The _article_ , Kristie.”

“It’s Kara, actually,” she tells her, but it’s muttered down into her bag as she searches for the pages. If it’s covered with food or pencil shavings or, god forbid, _hand written_ , Cat is going to throw it straight into the bin with Karla looking on. It isn’t—it’s actually zipped into a pretty neat folder and Cat makes a note to get one for herself. It looks smart _and_ spacious. Unexpected from small-town Katie but appealing nonetheless. She takes the pages handed to her, and puts them down on her desk without looking at them. 

Cat returns to her computer. She feels Kara linger for a minute, and then she’s gone.

//

At the end of her very long day—and after an excruciating conversation with Connolly she can barely think about with her head immediately _throbbing_ —she cleans up her desk and readies to head home. The article is still sitting there on her desk and she sighs, yanks open her bottom drawer, and drops it in where it will stay for the foreseeable future with the rest of the stuff she can't be bothered looking at. A broken stapler, a half empty tin of mints, that frayed charger cord she keeps meaning to throw away. 

She nudges the drawer closed with her foot and walks away. 


	3. Chapter 3

Kara is coming out of the grocery store when Alex calls and Kara lifts her phone to her ear, has to switch all her bags to one hand and, after a man turns his lips down and lifts his eyebrows and looks very impressed, she lets her shoulder sag a little under the weight and pretends it’s heavy. 

“Groceries? Which store?”

“The one opposite the music store,” Kara tells her. She stops on the corner of the street and, with an extremely subtle glance around, disappears into the alley to her left. “It’s a-okay, I haven’t been here for a week.” 

“Mhm, okay, hold on.” Alex talks to her as she clicks through her phone. “Groceries, groceries, groceries—store opposite music shop, got it. Okay so you can’t go there again for, like, a week.”

“I _know_ , Alex. I’m being careful,” she says, and floats over the fence that blocks the middle of the alley. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just reminding you. Anyway, listen to what happened at the lab today. You should’ve been there, I honestly needed super strength to hold me back from straight up slamming this _idiots_ head against the table. He nearly poisoned everyone in there!” she defends herself when Kara tsks. 

It’s a nice long stroll down a pretty busy street to get back to her neighbourhood, and one long alley takes her right through to their building. There’s just one last short alleyway that takes Kara around to the front of the apartment block and Kara barely has to think about it all. 

The weeks before coming to National City she spent pouring over Google maps and street guides—memorising the layout of the grids and the street names and a few diners and stores that Alex had mentioned in passing—and she had taken a few days before classes had started to explore properly, mostly around her apartment and Alex’s. She did it mostly for Eliza’s sake, and her own to get her to calm down. But she likes her new city a lot. 

It smells more than she remembers Argo City _ever_ smelling, but that probably has a lot to do with her powered senses. It’s not as sleek as Argo was either, but the differences are so stark that Kara doesn’t think like that for long—she knows it’s not like she’s visiting a different city, that she can go back to Argo after her day trip is over, she _knows_ that Earth is her home now, but sometimes it’s nice to fool herself. Catalogue the differences like she can take them home to her parents. 

Alex listens to things like that, likes to hear about it. About how the buildings here look squat. Heavy. _Feel_ squat and heavy. That the metals on Argo were different in every way—lighter, delicately worked. The way of building made them thin, delicate, and strong. How the floors were made of stones cut into beautiful designs, even in the newest buildings, and Kara can’t remember if that was tradition or culture or for some other reason. She wish she knew. 

There are sprawling parks and roof gardens, but Kara doesn’t tell Alex about those. They’re usually private, and accessed through…less than human means. And there are food stands _everywhere_ —some of them know Kara by name, which she also doesn’t tell Alex, and she works her way diligently through everything they have to offer, in all their dozens of combinations, and part of her says it’s just because it’s delicious, but another part of her knows that she’ll never stop looking for the familiar, even in a city as vast and different as this. 

When she does find home, it’s always far too short-lived, and always _hurts._ Like her heart is re-arranging itself in her chest, re-aligning. The sightings are few and far between. Kara hopes it’s because everything here is new and not because she’s forgetting. 

But there’s, there’s this one alley. All red brick. Old. And at exactly four fifty-seven in the afternoon a week and a half ago, Kara had entered it with an ice-cream in one hand and a cooler bag of frozen pizzas in the other, and had walked into oranges and reds she thought she’d lost. 

She had come up with some dumb excuse—they were out of her favourite pastries at the bakery, something like that—to tell Cat to explain why she’d been crying. Cat had rolled her eyes, maybe not even heard her in the first place. Kara hadn’t bothered to explain anything much since then. 

Not that it had happened again, even though Kara had returned to that alley several more times. It’s just an alley now, like the rest. A lot of them are filled with garbage, many more are not quite as full of garbage. Some have actual bloodstains. Kara stares down at one for a short moment, humming along with whatever Alex is telling her, and she can’t help but think back to that night. There might have been a stain like this one if she had been a fraction later to help Lucy. 

How long should she wait before…before doing _that_ again? She unlocks the door to the building, starts up the stairs. _Will_ she ever do that again? 

Her stomach turns over—she’s thinking about it _while she’s on the phone with Alex_ and still her hands feel like they’re buzzing with excitement. The air is crisper, tastes sweeter—dear Rao, except when she’s walking past 2D—when she just _thinks_ about flying, and she has to make an effort not to stamp footprints into the steps. 

What if she finds another person who needs help? She shakes the thought away when Alex’s voice turns strained and angry in her ear, frightened for all of half a second that somehow her sister _knows_. 

“Lord, that _asshole_. You know what he’s been talking about, right, this amazing advancement,” she sneers, “with whatever he’s been tinkering with. He’s probably already perfected it, just dragging it out so he can present it along with, like, twelve other bullshit experiments and he’s gonna single handedly save the human race and everyone is gonna love him and there goes my scholarship, which, y’know, that’s the important thing here.”

“Right,” Kara laughs. 

“What a smarmy _bastard_.”

She’d have to help them, wouldn’t she? If she found someone in trouble? It’s not like she could just ignore someone in danger. Especially since she can’t get hurt—would it be selfish? For her to ignore them? Not that there necessarily _will_ be someone in danger, but would it be better not to practise just so she’s not in danger of hearing someone, or should she practise in case she _does_ and so she can help better?

Kara slips her phone into the pocket in her hoodie so she can unlock the front door. She can still hear Alex clearly and tunes one ear to her, hooks a finger around the arm of her glasses so she can check the apartment. It’s empty—Cat is at some newspaper thing until late, she’s pretty sure, but sometimes she has guests.

“It’s so unfair, you know?” Alex sighs, and Kara lifts her groceries onto the bench and fishes the phone from her pocket, lays it gently on the side. She taps it onto speaker and begins putting everything away. “How the hell am I supposed to compete against a literal genius? I hate this _system_ ,” she groans. There’s a rapid pop of gunfire and Kara flinches. 

“What—oh, gaming. What are you playing?”

“Halo.”

“Bad mood game.” She glances through the mail Cat tucks into the bread basket. Nothing for her. 

“What can I say? The Flood remind me of Shitwell Lord.” Alex climbs into a cutscene, tosses her hands to the side as she waits for the game to continue—Kara hears the trigger click when it lands on a couch cushion—and sighs for a long time. “I don’t get it. Why can’t they offer more than one scholarship? Better yet, why can’t Lord fuck right off?”

“It’s definitely upsetting.”

“Say it with me. It’s totally shitty.”

“It’s totally shitty,” Kara laughs, and Alex sighs but sounds marginally less depressed, which means Kara is doing her job right. 

“Hey,” Alex starts in a tone that makes Kara’s trouble metre start pinging, “you don’t want to help out your favourite sister with her amazing plan, do you?” A negative, but framed cajolingly. Alex wants something. Kara narrows her eyes at the phone, the contact photo of her sister shoving a hamburger into her mouth. 

“Amazing plan?” she asks, hoping this is something Alex is going to elaborate on and not something she’s already told her. 

“Yeah, the plan where I— wait, have you heard a word I said?”

“Yes, of course.” It’s stretching it a little—Alex _clearly_ means ‘were you listening to me’ but really, phrases can be so broadly interpreted and, Kara feels guilt flash hot all over her and she scrunches her nose. “No, I’m sorry,” she sighs. “I was thinking about—“ and she can’t tell Alex what she’s _really_ thinking about, because if Alex is in a bad mood now, hearing that Kara has been using her superpowers, unguided, untested, against all instructions, that’s bound to make her _apoplectic_. “my article.”

In the background, Alex’s game pauses and then she’s standing, moving around her apartment. 

“Right. That’s cool.” Her tone is a little cool and Kara frowns with her whole body, closes her eyes, closes her shoulders inwards. 

“I’m sorry.”

She hates this divide—hates how _guilty_ she feels about this whole thing—and how it’s distracting her from Alex, which isn’t what she wanted at all. She clicks the phone off speaker, cradles it to her cheek. “Hey,” she says again, “I’m sorry. It’s coming back to me. Maxwell made something and you think he’s going to win the scholarship, I remember, I do, I was listening. How can I help?” Alex is silent for a while and Kara leans forward onto the counter, turns her face further into her phone. “Alex, come on. How can I help?”

Alex’s fridge door opens. The sound of her fighting with it makes Kara smile—it’s brand new and the seal is stronger than the one on her last fridge so there’s always this three second brawl—and she listens to some bottles clinking before, relief of reliefs, Alex opens something that fizzes and pours herself a small measure. Fridge closes, Alex grumbles, “You know your alien ears have saved your alien butt for the last time, right?” And then, “Ah fuck,” before she fights the fridge _again_ to put the bottle back.

“I know.” Kara runs a hand down her face, about eighty per cent certain she’s mimicking Alex’s stance from halfway across the city. “So?”

Alex clicks her tongue. Drinks. “I don’t know. It would be cool if I could pin down your cell regeneration, maybe make an immune booster that we could pair with these patches Rising Tech is making. For easy vaccination and stuff. Lord would be left in the _dust_ if we did something like that,” she crows. “Oh, and speaking of Lord, can you not call him Maxwell? He’s my nemesis, okay, you know I hate humanising him.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Kara laughs. “It’s what he told me to call him.”

That was the wrong thing to say, absolutely the wrong thing, and Alex is quiet for a whole two minutes. She finishes her drink, places the glass in the sink with a flat _clunk_ , and returns to the couch. She sits. Then, “When was that?”

“Um. A week ago. He was making coffee while I was eating the lunch.”

“Eating lunch.”

“Yeah. Oh, yes, while I was eating lunch.” Kara bites at her lip. “He was nice.”

“Jesus, Kara, of course he was nice. He’s a slimy toad who _knows_ he’s my nemesis and he’s trying to convert you.”

“That would never happen, you’re my sister.” Alex grumbles, sounding very pleased at that. She continues her game. “And second, he has to be slimy and tricky. He might be smart but he’s not as smart as you are.”

“Damn right.”

“Maybe prettier thought,” Kara teases, and it shocks a laugh out of her sister. Kara grins, presses her phone closer to her cheek again. It’s not the same as leaning against Alex, but it has to be enough. 

“He might be pretty—”

“I _knew_ you thought it!”

“— _but_ , and this is a big but, he is a smart, slimy toad with a ego the size of the moon and a mistrustful streak a mile long. Not a good mix. He gives me a real bad feeling, just something about him…” 

“Could it be,” Kara suggests, finally unpacking her groceries and hauling the colds into the fridge at double speed, “the fact that he is your nemesis?”

“Oh ha ha, very funny. I’m being serious here, he gives me a bad feeling. Just stay away from him, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”

“And also that I help you with your project so you can trash him.”

“Yeah, but you’d do that anyway.” Alex pauses her game again. “You’ll stay away from him?”

“Yes.” Kara feels the urgency in her sister’s words, and nods even if Alex can’t see her. “Yes, of course. I promise.” It’s not a hard promise to make—Alex has been telling her forever about Lord, and Kara would readily agree even from their short, superficial conversation about bagels, that he can’t be trusted as far as a considerably weaker human could throw him. “Alex?”

“Mhm.”

“This bad feeling you get about him—is it… Does it feel like he’s always staring at you?” She jumps up onto the kitchen counter and, knowing she has a habit of absent-minded destruction, crosses her legs underneath her. “Does it feel…”

“Kara?” Alex prompts her when she’s been quiet for a while. 

“Does he give you an itch all across your shoulders and your throat when he’s looking at you? And everything he says feels like…” Kara frowns, opens her hand wide to invite the word to her. “Like cardboard sets.”

“How’d you mean?” Alex’s voice is gentle and Kara imagines her curled into her couch, controller limp in her hands, and smiles, knowing she has Alex’s full attention. There’s that brief dip of guilt again and she shakes herself free from it. 

“Like, those sets on television. They _look_ like they’re real but then they’re not.”

They sit quietly together for a little time, Alex turning the thought over in her head and Kara waiting for her to sort it out. After some time, Alex hums. 

“Empty, you mean.” Kara agrees half-heartedly. “Like, they _should_ be real and you feel kind of let down that they’re not?”

“A promise not kept,” she agrees, but she can tell that Alex knows the word don’t fit the feeling exactly. Kara likes to think she could explain it in Kryptonian, but those feelings that go beyond words exist in every language, to her limited knowledge. 

“Yeah, I guess the word I like to use is _slimy_. He oozes around and leaves his stink everywhere. He says something and you think you got the better deal but then it turns out that he’s slunk himself over the finish line just ahead of you, the slime bag.” She knows she shouldn’t laugh but Alex is _furious_ again and she can’t resist. “Sure, laugh it up little sister but it sounds to me like you’ve got a Max Lord of your own. Who is it?” Couch springs creak as Alex shifts. A little sigh tells Kara she’s comfortably settled again and more questions are imminent. 

She cuts her off before she can begin. “You know what? It’s nothing.”

“Didn’t sound like nothing.”

“Well it is,” Kara says very decisively. Of course, Alex doesn’t listen. 

“Sounds suspicious.”

“Everything sounds suspicious to you.”

“Weird, it’s like you said something suspicious and now you’re trying to change the subject to my perfectly rational paranoia.”

“Paranoia _isn’t_ rational—“

“Kara Danvers, you tell me right now who is freaking you out,” Alex half-laughs, half-demands, and Kara scowls across the room. She props her elbow against one knee and drops her chin into her hand. 

“There’s this girl, okay.”

“Hold on,” Alex says, sounding like she wants to laugh a little. “This isn’t a crush, is it? You’re feeling weird over a girl?”

“ _No._ I know what a crush feels like, Alex. This doesn’t feel good weird.”

Alex is still laughing a little but she hums her acceptance of that. “Do you think… Maybe she’s like you?”

Kara considers that for a moment before dismissing it. She’s never once met another alien, other than her cousin, while she’s been on Earth. Well. Not that she _knows_ of, anyway. She’s in hiding too so it’s not like aliens are popping out of the ground to come up to her and introduce themselves. 

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, whatever it is, trust your instincts. Stay away from here and, while we’re on the topic, _definitely_ stay away from Lord.”

“I’ve _got_ that, Alex,” Kara has to laugh. “Oh shoot, hold on let me put you on speaker.” She does and jumps from the counter top, floats down to the ground so she doesn’t put two foot-shaped holes into floorboards that mean more to Cat than Kara does. “I have that Skype date with Kal in,” she touches her phone lightly to bring up the time, “three minutes.” And she has twenty sandwiches to make. “So what did you want me to do for your beat-Lord-at-his-own-game experiment thing? I _know_ I heard something about regenerative cells.”

“Nah, forget about it. As sweet as beating Lord would be, as much as I _dream_ about it in every waking moment and when I go to sleep…” She drifts off, wistful, and Kara has to clear her throat to get her attention again. “Right. As great as that would be, keeping you safe comes first.”

Kara’s stomach swoops to its lowest point yet and the knife in her hand squeals under the pressure of her closed fist. 

“Kara? You there?”

“Huh? Yeah—yes,” she clears her throat. “Yes, sorry, I’m here. I was just thinking about Lord’s face if you did something like that.”

“The one and only time I would think him beautiful,” comes the dreamy reply. “One day. When I have my own lab. We’re gonna save the world together. You and me.”

“Yeah.” All over again, clear as the moment it happened, Kara sees the man in front of her and Lucy and the guilt remains, tugging her stomach right down into her boots, but stronger still and keeping her from blurting out _everything_ to her sister is the knowledge that she saved someone. That Lucy might have been hurt if she hadn’t done something. “But you’d let me know if I _could_ help you, right?”

“Duh, of course. What else are little sister for except to exploit for personal gain?”

“ _Alex_.”

“I’m _kidding_.” She doesn’t even try to hide her mumbled _sort of_ and laughs when Kara reminds her that she can hear her. “Alright, kid, it’s almost four. Cousin date?”

“Just finishing my snacks.” Nudging the fridge closed, Kara picks up the plate with her stack of sandwiches and carries it and her phone to her bedroom—and oops, she has to go back for her book bag because she can just imagine the weird looks she would get from Cat if she saw the subjects she’d picked up from the library. 

“Great. Okay, well, say hi to Clark for me.”

“Of course. And hey,” Kara adds before Alex can hang up. Alex’s tone worries her, but she can’t place exactly what it is. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Kara relaxes when the easiness returns to Alex’s breathing. Obviously that was the right thing to say. And she can’t imagine why she might have needed it but if she did then Kara was going to say it as many times a day as she could. “But seriously,” she continues, and the weirdness is totally gone in favour of a familiar teasing sharpness, “call him or he might fly out here to catch up with you. He’s been _bugging_ me,” she groans. “I’m gonna invest in a swatter.”

Kara dumps her plate on her desk and frowns. “He has? About what?”

“You, life, your first weeks at uni. The usual shit.”

“He has?” Kara traces her finger over the back of her desk chair. Cat had given it to her—as much as a disgusted ‘ _it was a gift, take it, I hate it and you’re giving me a back ache when I see you crouched next to the coffee table_ ’ can be assumed to be a gifting. “He hasn’t texted me at all.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, I guess he wanted you to settle in.”

“Right, that makes sense.” Kara throws her shoulders back and nods. That _did_ make sense. 

“Tell him to leave me alone though, I need to sleep.”

“So…you want me to say hello and also to leave you alone.”

“Got it in one. You can add a few choice names if you want. Dead meat. Pain in my ass. Man who should say I love you to his wife because if he annoys me enough I’m going to show him what a particularly dedicated human being can do to a super powered nerd. Appendix.”

“Appendix?”

“You know. It’s there, but ultimately useless.”

“Ouch.”

Alex laughs, obviously very pleased with herself, and Kara snorts. “Anyway, you get the idea. Piss off, love you.”

“Love you too.” Kara puts as much of herself into those words as she can and she knows Alex notices, and appreciates it, because she laughs a little before she hangs up and it’s a very happy sound. 

She hears the faint buzz of her phone where she tosses it onto her bed but before she can look at it, she has to prepare herself. All her pillows and her food in arms reach and… yes. Yeah, she thinks she’s ready and she flings herself into her bed and bundles her duvet around her shoulders and checks her messages.

— _ARE YOU READY FOR OUR SKYPE DATE????????_

and

— _also let that sad sack know that if he wakes me up at 3am again i don't care how strong he is i will k i c k his a s s ok_

She doesn’t bother responding to Kal, just signs into her computer and waits. She’s part way through her reply to Alex when the familiar ding interrupts. 

“Hey, baby cousin!” Her text is finished with a buzz of speed and she drops her phone down next to her knee and curls happily into herself, grinning down at the screen. 

“Funny,” he scowls, and breaks half a second later into a laugh. “You seriously need to find something new to call me.”

“I’ll call you baby cousin if I want to, _baby cousin_ ,” Kara says back, and it occurs to her that being so annoying is really something that she’s picked up from her sister. Speaking of… “It’s better than Alex’s suggestion, though,” she says, with a sly little smile that Kal picks up on with a shudder. 

“Oh geez Louise. What did she say?”

“The first one was sad sack and it didn’t get any nicer than that. She also said that you’ve been calling her a lot?” Kara ducks her head, adjusts the folds of her duvet so her arms are fully cushioned when she hugs them to herself and pretends she’s not watching Kal’s enormously expressive face from the corner of her eye. 

He knows, of course, and holds his hands up in surrender. “I can explain,” he hurries to say. “I know how big this is. I mean, getting out of Kansas was…” He shakes his head. “It was hard. Coming to Metropolis was a big change. I thought you would want a little time to just figure out everything but I still wanted to make sure that you were okay and Alex told me you were and,”

“You could have texted _me_ ,” she says, very softly, and he gives her that look again, that look that makes her ache inside. All guilt and hesitance and the tiniest edge of disappointment, like he’s waiting for her to realise that he’s doing right by her in the long run. She knows that—she’s been told that ever since he dropped her off at the Danvers—but is it so wrong that she _hurts_ sometimes? Is she not allowed to hurt? Or is her heart supposed to be invulnerable too? 

It’s at that point that she realises that her thoughts are getting a little _too_ dramatic. He was giving her space and time and being thoughtful and she’s blowing it out of proportion. She _knows_ that, _duh_ , and so she dutifully drags herself back into the moment with Kal looking at her like she’s so young, like she still needs to be cared for, and she smiles. 

“You’re not mad with me then?” he asks.

Kara shakes her head. It _would_ have been nice to get a call from him, or a _good luck_ text before she started, but his reasoning makes sense so she shakes her head again. “No. Of course not. Alex wanted me to say that if you wake her up at three again, you’re dead. So, there’s that to consider.” He throws his head back and laughs and Kara smiles down at her hands. 

She could bring it up again, tell him actually, a text, a call, would have been nice, but she doesn’t know when he’s going to be pulled away and it’s not really worth starting an argument. Instead, she scratches at the side of her nose and glances sideways out the window and leans in toward the screen like she’s sharing a secret. 

“National City is _loud,”_ she says, low and quick like she’s sharing a secret and she likes the way he relaxes into his chair and grins a broad grin and nods. “And there are so many people and— _Rao,_ the _smells!_ ”

“Oh God,” he agrees, and Kara bites down hard on her tongue. “The smells were the worst part. It must be worse for you though—I grew up with cows and pigs so I was used to blocking all that out.”

She’s visited his parents exactly once and she knows exactly what he’s talking about. 

Farms are…not Kara’s happy place. 

“Gross.”

“It’s an acquired smell.”

“It’s an acquired _taste_ ,” she shoots back, and just the memory of it makes her stick her tongue out and try to scrape the overwhelming smell from her tongue. “Yuck.”

“You know what will make you feel better?”

“Nothing in the universe?” It is only with great effort that she can banish _that_ particular memory. 

“Food. Like a Delicious Danny’s milkshake.”

“I would give _anything_ for one of those,” Kara groans, and she groans again, feeling actually physically pained when Kal pulls one into view. “Stop.” He sticks a straw into the drink and sucks in a mouthful, hums happily. “I hate you.” He’s full on groaning now and Kara covers her face with her hands. 

“That’s not a normal reaction to Skype sex,” a voice calls from her doorway and Kara flushes bright red when she sees an incredibly well dressed Cat leaning in her doorway. She’s dressed in tight _everything_ and Kara can’t look past red, red lips except maybe if Cat were to lean forward a little and then, well, Kara wouldn’t be able to _not_ see her, well, everything—but Cat, fortunately or unfortunately, Kara isn’t sure yet, doesn’t lean forward and instead she just stays there grinning. “Need any tips?”

“I—“ Kara stutters a little, because she’s insinuating _that_ about her _cousin_ but also because this might be—is, definitely _is_ —the very first time Cat has spoken to her in a manner that could be construed as pleasant and she doesn’t know how to deal with this. All her words leave her brain in a fog and she struggles to pin any down, let alone the right ones. “ _No_ , we’re, this isn’t—“

“Who is it, little _cousin_?” Kal emphasises. It’s in an effort to rescue her, Kara knows that, but with one look at Cat and her growing grin, she also knows that it was exactly the wrong thing to say.

“When you introduced yourself as family oriented, I had no idea it was to this degree.”

Kara gapes at her—Kal, with the screen turned just enough that he too can see the girl in the doorway, gapes too—and their identical horror seems to be working for Cat. Like. A lot. It’s probably just her imagination but Cat’s teeth seem sharper and whiter than usual, her eyes light up with an evil, evil glint. And when she licks over the sharp line of her teeth, Kara can think only of a lioness after a kill—and how unfairly attractive her flatmate is. 

“I’m going out.” Kara hadn’t heard her come _in_. Mistake. Big mistake. “Don’t bother waiting up, I’m staying somewhere else.” She waits and, when Kara just nods, blushing a furious red, Cat adds, “In someone else’s bed. Where we’re having sex. Should I feel guilty about that?” she asks. “I’m _so_ sorry for interrupting the two of you.” 

“We— _no_ ,” is all Kara can say, and Cat pushes lazily away from the door frame and Kara’s eyes can’t help but run _all_ down that curve to where her hip pops just to the side. 

“If you say so,” she says, with a fake contrite expression, and she leaves with a little wiggle of her fingers that _might_ be a wave. But if it is, then it’s the most dismissive wave Kara has ever seen and it leaves her a little bit breathless.

Once the front door closes behind her, Kara leans forward until she’s laying flat on her bed and pulls her duvet over her head.

“So that’s the roommate, huh,” Kal comments, shaky. “Alex told me she was evil but I didn’t expect _that_.”

“Could you see her?”

“Yep.”

“She’s _beautiful_. It’s so unfair.”

“Hey. You’re beautiful too,” Kal tells her, gentle and sweet, and though Kara never wants to face the world again, she absolutely has to prop herself up and roll her eyes at him. “You _are_.”

“Thanks, Kal. Do me a gift, though. Throw out that milkshake.”

“Favour. And done.” He makes sure the lid is on properly and she watches him throw it into his sink, listens to it hit the metal and splash. “Nothing but net! Hey, tell her she’s ruined an American pastime. Delicious Danny’s will never be the same.”

“I’m not telling Cat _anything_. Ever. I’m never looking her in the eyes again. I’m never speaking to her _ever_ again.”

“That’s probably safe. You should probably change your identity and move countries to be absolutely safe, though.”

“Right,” Kara laughs. “You’re right.”

“Always. Anyway, here is something that will make you feel better. Or,” he pauses thoughtfully. “Maybe worse? Have a look.” He shifts his camera so she can see the feast he has spread out over his dining table. “Better or worse?”

“Worse,” she says. “I have twenty-three identical peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and you’re actively teasing me. Definitely worse.” She pouts—she can make out several pizzas and a whole plate of potstickers and she feels like crying. Just a little. She sucks in a breath and shakes her head instead. “Race you?”

Kal grins, mouth half full of a sandwich already. “You’re behind already, little cousin.”

//

They’re lazy and full and warm when they’re done and Kara yawns up to her ceiling. Her eyes scan the familiar constellations of glow stars tacked onto her ceiling—not real constellations, she could only remember a few and not in any accurate detail, but they’re in vaguely familiar shapes that she had stared up at her ceiling on Krypton, the projector humming by her head. 

“Kal?”

He stops in the middle of talking about his recent article—it’s interesting, probably, something about fraud, but Kara had drifted off _ages_ ago—and immediately gives her his full attention. 

“Yeah?”

“Can I… Can I ask you something?”

“Of _course_ ,” he says. “Absolutely. About anything.”

“Even sex?” she laughs, because she’s seen enough movies to know he’s supposed to squirm at that, and because apparently another trait she’s picked up from Alex is to make jokes to get away from potentially uncomfortable situations. 

But Kal just nods. “Of course. The first thing to consider in any environment that may turn sexual is consent, which encompasses a lot more than the physical act of—“

“Kal, oh _Rao_ , no, please stop. I was joking.” Kara drags her pillow over her head and laughs when he lets out a tiny, embarrassed _oh_. 

“Well,” he clears his throat. “I just thought… It’s something we should talk about someday anyway. Whenever you’re ready. I think it’s probably different from what Alex can tell you. She doesn’t have super strength, after all, and”

“Kal.” Kara waits until she has his attention. “That’s not what I want to talk about.”

“Right. Yes.” He nods, folds his hands in front of him in an effort to look smart and serious. His forehead crinkles just a little. “What did you want to talk about?”

She twists at her necklace, winds it around her fingers, and allows it to untwist as she considers whether she should—and if she _did_ , then _how_ —talk to him about, well. The whole saving people thing. One person. Hopefully more. 

“Kara.” His voice is soft and warm. “Whatever it is, you can ask me.”

“And,” she licks her lips, “it can stay between us? Just you and me?”

Kal leans forward in his chair. He frowns gently, eyebrows just pushing together, and he nods. “Of course,” and he sounds so much like her uncle, Kara closes her eyes and breathes for a moment. “Kara,”

“It’s about my powers,” she rushes to say, and bites her lip hard. His expression flickers between delight and worry and excitement and finally settles on some manufactured thoughtfulness she knows he’s using to hide behind. It’s just soothing enough to work, though. She twists her necklace again. “When did you know?”

“Know?” There’s another almost insufferable age before she can continue. He’s doing his best not to rush her, Kara knows that. She lets her breath out, untwists her necklace. “Do you want to talk to Lois?”

“No.” It’s not _him_ that’s the problem—it’s the asking. It’s the question. It’s even _thinking_ about it. She presses her tongue up against her teeth, twists her necklace. The words are piling up. Twisting up, twisting _her_ up inside. She untwists the chain, runs her fingers down the little drop. She lets the words out and raises a prayer to Rao that will take a millennia to get there that this isn’t the wrong move to make. “When did you know?” she repeats. “That you wanted to use them? That you wanted to help?”

Kal frowns more deeply, not chiding but genuinely thoughtful this time. His words are slow and measured, like he weighs them before letting them out. “It wasn’t like that at all. It was the right time—I was there, and I could do something about it. When I saw that plane coming down, I just knew. It felt…”

“Like it wasn’t a choice at all,” Kara finishes for him, stares down at her fingers, at the necklace. 

“Exactly.”

“Not the right thing,” she continues. The light fractures off the little jewel and Kara turns a little to catch the last of the sunlight as it falls behind the buildings. It’s like she’s welcomed in the outside and the voices start to rush past her, and over her, and her own voice sounds distant. Washed out, like she’s being drowned out. She can separate herself from this whole mess—with Lucy, with the warehouse, with the to and fro of powers and the powerlessness that injects itself into any choice—if she just gives in. Lets the world wash over her. She does, for a moment. Lets the voices, the cars driving and beeping and skidding and water rushing and planes burning a path through the sky, all of it submerge her. It’s overwhelming, the bigness of it all. She licks her lips, tastes the echo of salt, and she is recalled to the ocean, to having dark water ease up around her calves and sand-grit rocks at her back, and Alex with her staring into that still, calm expanse. She feels small now like she felt small then, and the words come thoughtlessly, like nothing she says can change the heft of this space. “It was the only thing to do.”

“Yes.” 

Kara remembers that the world might fade for her but continues to spin, continues to lay itself out in sharp relief for those who know how to look. 

And Kal is looking right at her. 

She turns back to him, works for a minute to shut out the world again, and she knows she’s given too much away with that small sentence. To his credit, Kal doesn’t ask any questions about what she’s done so far. 

“Do you want to ask me anything?”

“I…” If she does, it’s _real._ She’s serious about it. Because his advice is real advice, real stories, real tips on how to be a superhero. She's not sure that she's ready for that yet. 

She shrugs.

“Okay, well, how about this? I have a friend in National City,” he tells her. “He knows about me, ran around with me a couple of times. I’m sure if I let him know you want to talk, he’d be happy to meet with you. Tell you what it was like, balancing work and villains at the same time. Social life and super duties.” Kara gives him an uneasy smile. “No pressure,” he says in that voice she knows from experience he uses with cattle. “How about I give you his number and you can call him if you want to. No pressure,” he says again, raising his hands, and Kara nods, her smile feeling less sick and more hopeful. “Super!”

“Kal.”

“It’s never not funny,” he argues. “But yeah, just tell him Kal El said it would be okay to talk about Superman, and he can answer your questions. Or you can ask me,”

“No!” Kara shakes her head, continues softer, pretends she can’t see his hurt. “No, it’s just, theoretical. Hypothetical.”

“If you need me,”

“The whole world needs you, Kal.”

“Right.” The corner of his mouth twitches, a poor imitation of his normal smile. “Right. Be careful. With your hypotheticals. And maybe, hypothetically, it’s something you should talk to Alex about.” She nods. “Alright. Here is his number.”

Not that she’s going to, not just yet. Because it’s hypothetical and she hasn’t made up her mind and it doesn’t mean anything yet. 

Her phone buzzes and she looks down at the number and nods. “Thanks, Kal.” 

“Of _course._ Any time. And hey, no matter what you choose to do,” he says, flinging their hypotheticals out the window, “we’re family. I will always be here for you.”

Kara lays her hand to her chest, closes her eyes against the hot press of tears when he does the same. “Family. I know.”

“Kara,” he cuts himself off, turns to look behind him when sirens start to blare. She hears them tinny through her speakers and she’s already nodding when he turns back to face her. “I have to go. I love you, Kara.”

“I love you too, Kal. _Khaoshun.”_

_“Khaoshun.”_

* * *

She stares at the number for a long time.

How is she supposed to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger? About _this_ , no less. She doesn’t think she’s done that in her whole life—okay, twice this morning, but that was different because the first girl was so sweet and nice and Kara accidentally ran into her and her textbooks had gone _everywhere_ and she’s studying medicine which is so impressive and amazing so of course Kara would talk to her, she had to apologise obviously. And the second person had a dog so what was she supposed to do? Ignore them? Clearly neither of those situations were like this one, which is…hard. And scary. And maybe will be the first step to figuring out all the stuff that is going on in her life. 

She paces the length of her room for a long time, glad Cat had left.

She knows what Alex would say about this—about both situations, actually. About Cat? ‘You’re too nice for your own good. You’re paying for the apartment, do whatever you want, don’t let her push you around okay?’ And about this mysterious contact given to her by her superpower cousin, to whom she is supposed to give a secret code so that she can then talk to them about superpower business? ‘Admittedly cool,’ she’s pretty sure Alex would say, though that could be wishful thinking. ‘But a bad idea. A _really_ bad idea.’

But Alex isn’t here. 

And Kara _wants_ this. 

She plugs the number Kal gave her into her phone and dials—only, when she presses call, JAMES OLSEN comes up on her screen and Kara stares down at it, confused. 

“ _Hello? Hello?_ ” A moment in which Kara thinks she’s going to get away with it and then, “ _Kara? I have caller ID, you know_.”

Kara grimaces and clicks on the little red circle before she can think about it any longer. She breathes out a great gush of relief. It’s fine. She’ll see him tomorrow, laughingly explain that she must have ass called him after practicing how to say that in her mirror for most of the night, it’ll be _fine_ —

“Oh no.”

He’s calling her back! Kara stares wide-eyed down at the phone on her bed. What should she do? Throw it? No—that’s dumb, don’t throw it. _Dumb_ , Kara! Hang up? No—also dumb! He’ll know she declined. Answer?

“Hi,” she says, drawing out the word for an unnecessarily long time. “James, hey.”

“Hey,” he laughs. “What’s up?”

Does it matter if she _knows_ the person Kal knows? Does that make it more or less awkward? More or less terrifying? At least she knows that James is nice and talented and—

“We need to talk,” she says, before she can panic herself out of it. “About Superman.” Was that the right phrase? She can’t remember anymore. 

“Oh.” Does he sound upset? She said it wrong—he sounds _upset_. “You’re a fan of the big guy, huh, that’s cool. You can have a look through my photos tomorrow if you want but—”

“No, no, I want to talk about _him_.”

“Yeah, who doesn’t?” He coughs, shifts in what sounds like a cheap desk chair. It creaks when he leans back. “Look, Kara, you’re nice but I kind of came to NCU to get away from the whole ‘you’re friends with Superman’ thing and—“

“Kal!” Kara blurts out, remembering the phrase. And feeling like such a _goof_ for forgetting because hello, who really knew Kal’s real name—Kryptonian name, she should say, because she knows how much Kal-Clark loves his parents and his home here—except for her and his best friend? “James?” she says quietly when he is silent for a long minute.

“What—ah—what did you say?”

“Umm.” Kara fidgets, sucks in a deep breath. “Kal, he said that you might know some stuff about Superman. That I might find helpful.”

“Kal said that?”

“Yeah! Is… Did I get the code phrase wrong again?” Kara sighs. “Look, we were just talking and he said I could talk to you about stuff because you know him and I was hoping I could ask you some…stuff,” she finishes, wincing, because to her it sounds like one glaring message that yes, she has super powers!

James must not think so though because he just says, “You were talking to him? Like, just now? On a Tuesday night? For fun?”

“Well…yeah.”

“Huh.” He clears his throat. “How come?”

Kara hesitates. Then, well, she’s up into her knees so why not go the whole way?

“He’s my cousin.”

“Like,”

“Yes. My _cousin_.”

“Oh my god,” James whispers into the phone, and from her end she can hear him walking quickly into another room and the _snick_ of a lock. When he speaks again, his voice echoes the slightest bit and she thinks he might have hidden himself in the bathroom. “Like, his _cousin_? Like…”

“Yes.”

“ _Super_ cousin?”

“Yes.”

“You’re—oh my god. Do you want to meet right now?” He turns the bathroom taps to full power, drowning out his words to anyone else with him, Kara guesses. “I can tell you whatever you want to know! What do you want to know?”

“Thats, I was kind of thinking we could meet tomorrow, actually? And get coffee? Well,” she snorts, “not _coffee_ , it makes me all jittery. But a drink? And talking. Proper talking.”

James lets out a slow breath and Kara can’t help but laugh because he sounds _giddy_. Giddy! Excited! Thrilled! She doesn’t think anyone has _ever_ been thrilled about her being super powered before. Except maybe for Kal, of course, but even he worries first about the dangers. 

“Tomorrow,” James agrees. “How’s ten?”

“Ten!” She nods enthusiastically, lays her hand on her stomach and _shoves_ to try and dispel the fluttering of giant, giant butterflies. “Sounds great.”

“ _Awesome_. And yeah, wow, I’ll answer any questions you have. You can’t get this from the big guy himself?”

“It’s different for him,” is all Kara can tell him, unsure how to even start explaining how hard it is to talk to him about being Superman, about Krypton, with the constant press of family making itself felt. With James, she’s hoping that will be easier to ignore. 

//

“Hi James, how are you, long time no see—no, _stupid_ , you saw him yesterday,” Kara grumbles, shakes her head. “Okay, hi James, hung out with any alie—nope. Bad idea.” She throws her hands up in the air, exasperated with herself. “You had talked fine to him yesterday, be a grown up. Walk in there and be normal,” she hisses to herself, and she spins on her heel.

Right into James. 

She stumbles back a step and flushes. “Hi! Hi, hey, I was just,” she points behind him to the door and James grin, a lovely wide smile. He reaches out to take her hand, which she realises is still nervously pointing. 

His hand is large, and warm, and he holds her still for a moment before squeezing her hand and letting it drop. 

“ _Breathe_ , Kara. It’s just me. We met already, remember?”

Kara nods. “Of course. We see each other almost everyday, of course I remember.” He laughs and she realises that he’s teasing her. But he has to _understand_ , so she adds, “It’s different now.”

“Why?” He reaches up, shrugs his camera bag more securely on his shoulder.

Kara darts a furtive look around, leans in. “Because now you _know_.”

James’s smile fades. He reaches out again, lays a hand on her shoulder this time and he eases her off the path and out of the way of a throng of students. Standing next to her, he darts his own furtive glances around. “Now I know,” he agrees, slowly, once the coast is supposedly clear. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he knocks his elbow into hers. “Look, we haven’t talked a lot and I can’t even imagine what you’ve lived through. Clark has told me some things, about him growing up. The cow incident,” Kara grins and James nudges her again. He doesn’t pull away this time, leaves their arms pressed together. “And I know it’s not all as funny as that but, well, I do know a little and,” he shrugs. “I want you to know that you can trust me.”

Kara looks down to their arms, lets herself feel the weight and warmth of him, and she smiles. “Clark trusts you and,” she nods, “I do too. You were nice to me when I was just Cat’s seven tenth gopher and you didn’t have to be.”

“And that’s enough?”

“It’s not a bad sign.”

James tilts his head, gives her that sweet, huge smile again, and he nods. “Great. Are you ready to go in, then? I ordered you a milkshake, since you said you don’t like coffee. Is that cool? I know your cousin likes them so,”

“It’s perfect.”

“Oh, and my girlfriend is going to come join us in about half an hour. Don’t worry,” he tells her quickly, and he jogs ahead a few steps to open the door for her. “I haven’t told her anything. She heard us talking last night and I told her you needed to talk to someone. I may have made you sound a little…stressed.” He grimaces apologetically and Kara laughs. 

“That’s not wrong.”

James grins again. He points out the booth he claimed—right at the back—and she makes her way over while he collects their drinks. She slides into the booth, curls her hands into the sleeves of her sweater and when her knee starts jittery enough to make the cafe feel like its having a minor tremor, she sucks in a deep breath and holds it. 

She wishes Alex were here. Everything is so much easier to tackle when she’s around.

But no. Kara moved here so she could grow up. So she could face the world like everyone else does. Go to university, get a job, be _real_. She’s not going to give up just because everything is getting busier and harder and more imminently scary. 

“Hey, you alright?” James drops into the seat opposite her, pushes her milkshake across the table toward her. He’s got—she smells it—hot chocolate, one marshmallow melting in it, the other he’s already eaten if the powder on his lips means anything. “Nervous Kara, minor tremor,” he explains when she looks confused. 

“Oh. Oh, yes.” She grins, but it feels a little weak. “I’m sorry, this is just new and I,”

“Hey.” He lays his hand over hers. “We’ll get it all figured out.”

Kara closes her eyes, tries not to lose herself in the rasp of his skin, in the fibres of her sweater against the pads of her fingers, in the hundreds of people-smells in this cafe, the scent of coffee ground into every surface. 

“What do you want to know?” 

Kara fiddles with her straw. “Everything,” she admits with a little shake of her head. “Do you know if he ever saved anyone before that plane?”

James leans back in his seat. Nods quickly. “When he was back in the sticks. There was the farm accident, with his dad. And some car accidents. And a bus thing. He didn’t go into a lot of detail, but there were a lot of near misses.”

It’s strange, but hearing about Kal’s mess ups is actually more reassuring than Kara had expected. He hadn’t been perfect. He hadn’t got it right straight away. 

“He moved to Metropolis and the rumours died down. He was just this ordinary guy living a very ordinary life in the big city. Nothing special at all about him.”

“And that’s what he wanted?”

“Weird, right?” James rolls his eyes. “All these cool powers and he is so _normal_. You’d never think it looking at him. He’s _the_ red blooded American. He has a grill, invites people over for steak dinners and college football, wears flannel like he’s a lumberjack and has the forearms to pull it off.” Kara snorts and James grins, a little sheepish. He scratches at the back of his neck. “I knew him at work, before he was, uh,” he glances around. “The big guy.”

Kara nods. She starts sipping at her drink—vanilla. Really good. 

“I was the mailroom kid. Interning there. He was really nice. Not a lot of people gave me the time of day, but he did.” 

“Why not?”

“Mailroom kid,” James shrugs like that means everything. His lips twist into an unhappy smile. “Plus, you know. I’m black.”

“Right.”

“All those progressive minds in one place,” he sighs, eyes twinkling a little like he’s telling a joke but it doesn’t sound very funny yet, “and I managed to avoid them all.” He winks and Kara realises that’s it, that’s the whole joke, and she has to think about it for a long minute before she realises that the discrimination _is_ the joke and then her smile grows and he nods and she starts to laugh. 

“That’s not funny.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs. “Anyway, questions.” He nods to her. “Fire away, I’m ready.”

“His parents, what did they do when he became Superman?”

“I—“ James hesitates. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she shakes her head, focuses on the glass in front of her. “I was just wondering. I,” she presses a finger to the nose bridge of her glasses, pushes them up. “I have a sister. And a mom. I don’t know how…”

“To tell them?”

“To _do_ this,” she whispers. “Because I want to. I really do.” She licks her lips, leans forward. He mimics her and when they’re only a very short distance apart, she whispers, “I tested out my powers the other night.”

James’s eyes widen. “How? Where? How _was_ it, are they the same as his?”

“With a heap of nerves,” she jokes. It falls a little flat—she’s too nervous and he’s too interested in what really happened. She keeps going. “I was, I went to this warehouse. It’s abandoned and kinda creepy.” Kara pushes her straw into her milkshake, swirls it a little. She sucks the taste off her bottom lip, and focuses on that, and now, and here, instead of being tugged back into the still-sharp memory of that night. “I—I can _fly_ ,” she tells him, and his eyes light up. “I flew through a wall, a _concrete wall_ , and I just got dusty. And I could hear _everything,_ ” she hesitates over what to say, whether to tell him about her, and the attacker, and walking her home, and she licks her lips again. “I punched a crater into the ground and I flew through the roof and the iron _tore,”_ she whispers, and he nods quickly. “It’s, it’s like breathing for the first time. It’s like having weights tied to every part of you, no it’s like tying a weight to yourself every second all the time over and over and then I didn’t have to do that anymore,” she tells him, and her words are coming a little too fast but he’s nodding her on still. “And flying is just, it’s _amazing_ , James, it’s wonderful, like nothing else I’ve ever felt before, and I never want to be on the ground again and I can’t wait, I want to fly in the sun properly without having to worry about it, I _want_ that.” Kara lowers her head to the table, thunks it carefully down a few times. “I can’t screw this up,” she says down to the tabletop, which she thought was wood but she thinks might actually be plastic made to look like wood. 

“It’s going to be okay, Kara,”

“No, I have my _family_ , James. I can’t throw that—can’t throw _them_ away just because I want to fly. This is going to put them in danger.”

“You don’t know that,”

“I do.”

“Well…then I would tell you that that’s what a secret identity is for.”

Kara lifts her head slowly. “Secret identity.”

“Yeah. What do you think about _Super Woman?_ ” Kara wrinkles her nose, shrugs. He lifts his hands in surrender. “Just a suggestion. We’ll think of something.”

“So you think I should do this then? Be a superhero like him?”

James frowns across at her. “Well, yeah. Of course. I mean,” he leans in again and his eyes are so bright and his grin so wide Kara can practically _feel_ the energy burning inside him. “You’re a _hero_ ,” he insists. “You can do these amazing things, or you will be able to. That has to mean something.”

“Right.” 

“You have to choose it, though.” He sits back, nods decisively. “That’s what Clark always said. You have to choose to do it. Not about you. About everyone. That’s what makes people heroes. Standing up and doing what you can.”

“But what if the right thing to do is nothing?”

James hesitates. Then, he shakes his head. “I haven’t known you very long, Kara, but I think if someone was hurting in front of you, there isn’t a lot you wouldn’t do for them.”

They sit in silence for a time, finishing their drinks. James’s phone buzzes and he flips it over. 

“Company inbound,” he tells Kara, and she sits up and tries to wipe the faint misery and confusion from her expression. “Talk about something else. How’s working at the paper going?”

Kara’s expression droops again. 

“Oops.”

“Cat _hates_ me,” she grumbles. “And birds, which is _not_ something to make a cat joke about, in case you thought about doing that.”

That surprises a laugh out of him and his shoulders shake with it. “I heard you made an impassioned speech about…wading birds?” Kara nods. “She wasn’t impressed?” She shakes her head no. “Ah, it’s alright, she’ll come around,” he tells her sincerely, and Kara _does_ feel a little lighter in the face of his positivity. “Try something different next time, maybe?”

“I don’t think it’s the subject matter so much as the writing. And the writer. And also the subject matter,” she admits, and it’s true but it makes James _laugh_ and Kara laughs with him. She sucks up the last of her milkshake and promptly chokes on it, a familiar face appearing in the doorway of the cafe. 

James stands, grabs a handful of napkins from a nearby table, and she focuses on mopping up every drop as she valiantly tries to _not_ focus on the girl making her way through the cafe—who please, please, _please_ Rao, _please_ let her not be James’s girlfriend, please don’t do this—and James finally follows her glances over his shoulder and turns, face breaking out into a stunning smile. He jumps up out of his seat and heads right for her. 

So, okay, it is her. But maybe she isn’t the her from that night—even if she has the same haircut, and jawline, and profile…and heartbeat. Which is less easy to brush away. 

“Kara!” James slides into the booth again, and he waves a hand toward his girlfriend, sliding in with him. “This is Lucy. Lucy, this is my friend Kara.”

Kara can’t lift her eyes above Lucy’s collar, but she does offer her a smile and a nod. “Really nice to make you, meet you for the first time,” she says, stumbles over the words, and from the corner of her eye she sees a really lovely smile being sent her way. 

“Hey, nice to meet you too. For the first time,” she adds, like Kara had, and smiles a lovely smile. It’s teasing, but not mean, and so pretty Kara stares for a minute. 

The lamplight and the dark had done her no justice—Lucy is easily one of the prettiest girls Kara has ever seen, and she’s absolutely _rocking_ a sharp business look that has Kara reaching for her milkshake, forgetting that she’d already finished it. It’s probably a good thing, really, because she feels a little bit sick. 

Same voice, same eyes, same Lucy. 

Lucy Lane is James Olsen’s girlfriend. James knows she’s powered. Lucy knows she’s _using_ her powers. This can’t end well. 

Or could it?

She considers the possibilities, adjusting the likelihood each time another outcome occurs to her and as the probability of this having a good or decent outcome dwindles, her heart sinks lower right into her stomach and the way her pulse starts to jackhammer inside her, pound in her temple, makes her feel queasy. The world deadens, becomes leaden around her. 

She’s jolted out of it by a gentle touch to her wrist. James peers over at her, rubs his thumb over the back of her hand. 

“You alright?”

“Yeah. I’m,” Kara forces a smile. “I didn’t sleep much last night. Loads of assignments already.”

“You know, there are deck chairs in the quad,” Lucy tells her, and Kara is surprised enough to look up and right at her. There is no moment, no second where everything clicks, and Kara can’t see any recognition in her eyes. “You can sleep there or sit in the sun. It’s really nice.”

Kara nods. That _does_ sound really nice. 

They sit in a faintly awkward silence for only a minute, but it’s strained and feels like several _long_ minutes. A buzzing phone rescues them and they each go diving for their phones. 

“Mine, it’s mine,” Kara tells them, and she checks the message quickly, eyes widening. “Oh no.”

“Kara?”

“It’s almost eleven,” she tells him, already pushing her way out from the booth. “I have to go, I have work, I’m sorry I really have to go,” she says, and he nods.

“That’s okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, right? At the newspaper?”

“Yes, yeah of course. Lucy, nice to see you,”

“Nonsense, I’ll walk you out,” Lucy offers. “James, would you get my coffee to go?”

“Of course. See you, Kara. You can call me anytime.” 

She nods at that and walks to the door, glances a few more times than necessary from the floor to the girl walking next to her. They step out into the sun, and Kara takes a few steps in the direction of the labs. 

“I’m that way,” she points, and Lucy nods. 

“Kara,” she says, and it sounds a little different from how she said her name earlier. More…thoughtful. It makes Kara nervous. “So you’re Clark’s cousin,” she continues, in a very light, nonchalant way. 

The blood drains from Kara’s face and she clutches tight at the straps of her backpack. “I’m, he…” She sucks in a breath, tries for ease. “Who?”

“Clark Kent?”

The strap rips—quietly, under so much strain the threads simply pop open—and her bag falls to the ground, scattering her notebooks and papers. Kara dives for them, mumbles half-sentences and then just apologies as she picks them up. 

Lucy kneels with her. She hands over one notebook, a few pages.

Kara eyes them warily, like Lucy is tricking her somehow, but takes them. 

“Thanks.”

“Does he know?” Lucy jerks her head sideways, toward the cafe. Kara licks her lips. “I’m guessing he knows that you’re Clark’s cousin. Does he know you saved me?”

Kara shakes her head very slowly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Really? Because James is coming this way and I can talk louder if-“

“No! No, okay,” she darts a nervous look toward James, and then back to Lucy. “Yes,” she hisses. “It was me, okay? Just… Don’t tell anyone. Please.”

Lucy presses the last of the pages into Kara’s hand, a drawing, a sketch of a cafe from a week ago. “You’re very talented,” she tells her with a sweet smile, glancing down very obviously toward the page. Kara nods slowly, hearing James step up beside them. Kara stands first, and after a split second, offers a hand down to Lucy to help her up. She flushes when Lucy grins—that’s what she had done that night too. 

And maybe, a little, because Lucy has very soft hands and she smells really nice. 

“Thank you,” she says, and it sounds a bit overzealous for the compliment. “That’s, um, I’m still learning,” she hurries to say. She hugs her bag with its now broken straps to her chest. 

“I’d love to see more some time.”

“Um. Yes, yeah maybe. I have to leave,” she blurts out, and steps around Lucy to head toward the labs. 

“I’ll text you!” James calls after her and Kara turns, nods, taking care to give him a thumbs up and not the middle finger—that’s the rude finger, Kara remembers. 

“Can you give me her number?” Kara picks up Lucy asking. She groans, darts another look back over her shoulder, and Lucy catches her. She _winks_. 

After all that, it’s a bad idea to do it but Kara is going to be late for work if she doesn’t so she gathers up her things tightly and steps into the nearest clear side street and sets off at a sprint. _Her_ version of a sprint. 

**Author's Note:**

> hey, unicyclehippo on tumblr as well. u can send me prompts & stuff. enjoy x


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